


The Letters

by towanda



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, F/F, Fluff, Love Letters, Romance, Swooning, Therese Has No Chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:19:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 27,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8769712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towanda/pseuds/towanda
Summary: "Therese reached behind her and pulled out a thick sheaf of what appeared to be folded sheets of writing paper, tied in a ribbon.  “'These are for you, finally.'”The letters Therese writes to Carol, between their first meeting and their road trip.  Referenced in and follows immediately after my story "The Longest Day, Getting Here."  Referenced of course "The Price of Salt," though we get just a few lines from them.  Movie timeline/canon, book canon for more details. Events from "Holding Hands" also referenced.ETA:  And if you're wondering if Carol would respond, well, yes, yes she would.





	1. Carol Settles In

_Therese reached behind her and pulled out a thick sheaf of what appeared to be folded sheets of writing paper, tied in a ribbon.  “These are for you, finally.”_

_Carol pushed herself up by her elbows until she was sitting, then took the packet from Therese.  “Are these…?”_

_“All my letters to you, yes.  So they are yours now, as they should be.”_

_“Therese…I’m…” she pressed the letters to her face, inhaling, speechless._

_Therese shifted off Carol’s hips, shifting around beside her and handing her the second key.  “Tomorrow, come home from work, let yourself in to our apartment here, pour yourself a drink, and read them.  You can tell me what you think when I get home.”_  

* * *  


Carol hopped out of the cab and walked up to the door of the building…their building, their apartment, the “Blue Place.” She stopped in front of the entry door, savoring the moment as she pulled the freshly-cut keys Therese had given her the evening prior out of her bag.  She ran her thumb along the cool metal, smiling to herself as she unlocked the street-level door and let herself in for the first time.  _Our place now, for real,_ she thought to herself as she climbed the three flights up to the apartment.  _Together, ours._   Carol felt somewhat overwhelmed when she reached the apartment door. 

She inhaled, slid the key into the lock and turned it, beaming as the door swung smoothly open.  Setting her bags on the floor, she meandered a bit through the rooms, still clinging to the keys and humming to herself. The possibilities now that Therese had fully let her in seemed endless.  In the living room, she spotted a new, unopened bottle of Bushmills on the coffee table, along with a clean glass and the packet of Therese’s letters.  A folded note stood on top of the packet.  _Always full of surprises, that one_ , grinned Carol as she knelt at the table, picking up the note and unfolding it with the flick of a finger.

_Dear Carol ~_

_I hated letting you out of my arms so early this morning. I look forward to the weekend, when our schedules are our own. My plan is to have no plan other than holding you.  In the meantime, as I said last night, pour yourself a drink and read my letters.  I’ll be home as soon as I can._

_All my love,_

_~ T_

_P.S. Save me some of that Bushmills._

Carol rose to her feet in a smooth motion, still holding the note, pressing it to her chest as she walked into the bedroom to change into more comfortable clothes.  She placed the note carefully on the bedside table and began to take off her suit.  The anticipation of reading the letters was a fluttering trill in her chest, making her want to rush and slow down time all at once.  Once changed into her satin pajamas (what could be more comfortable?) and freshened up a bit from the work day, she put her things away, heading to the kitchen with the bouquet of roses she had picked up on the way home:  a dozen rich crimson, and two in the center, bright yellow.  She arranged the flowers in a vase, careful to keep the two yellow roses in the center. _The two of us. Now this is what roses are for_ , inhaling their scent as she carried the arrangement to the table by the living room window, _for celebration, for joy, for beauty_.  Returning to the kitchen, she made herself a plate of buttered bread, and finally, at last, settled onto the couch.

 _As she said,_ Carol thought, reaching for the Bushmills bottle and pouring herself a few fingers worth of whiskey into the glass.  She took a sip, letting the warmth fill her and calm the flutter, if only slightly.  Setting down the glass, she picked up the packet of letters and held it cradled in her hands in her lap for a moment, gazing down at it tenderly, a sacred text to be read with care. _What a gift. What will I find here?_ With a contented sigh, she gently pulled the ribbon holding the packet together until the knot slid apart.  She took the first letter, several pages of plain letter paper folded together, and unfolded it carefully.  She caressed a finger along the date at the top, her eyes burning with tears; the date of their first lunch was one she knew by heart.  Taking a deep breath, she began to read Therese’s careful, rounded script.


	2. Thank You Note

December 18, 1952

Dear Carol ~

Thank you very much for inviting me to lunch.  You certainly didn’t have to but I am glad that you did and I had a lovely time.  I had a lovely time with you.

Thank you for lunch, for inviting me.

Thank you. Thank you for being kind to me. Thank you for not laughing at me. Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for being. For being.

I feel like there is so much more I want to say, more than thank you. A thank-you note, how could that ever be sufficient for how you make me feel, how I’ve felt since you walked onto my floor at Frankenberg’s, since I saw you, you saw me seeing you, you saw me, how is this possible, Carol?

And then you invited me to lunch and your perfume smells even more glorious on your skin than the echo of it on your gloves and now you’ve invited me to your house and I don’t know who I am anymore.  Can you tell me? I believe you have the answers to everything.

Can you tell me what made you smile? What made you nervous (you seemed nervous, sometimes?  I was nervous, you make me nervous, like wine). Can you tell me what I saw in your eyes when you suddenly went quiet, still, distant like you went away? Where did you go and will you always come back to me?

Can you tell me what in the world you meant when you said I was a strange girl, that I was flung out of space? Can you tell me why it made me feel as if it were true, even though I don’t know what you mean, but still I felt, feel as if I could fly, suddenly, with a soaring joy?

Can you tell me why I feel like I’m dying and I’ve never been more alive all at the same time?

Will I ever know? Obviously I can never send this to you now that you know the truth, how I would do anything to make you smile all the way into your eyes, such kind eyes, your eyes seem to see all the way into me, what do you see there? I’m just a girl at a shop counter, maybe, but you make me feel like I could be, maybe I am so much more. Maybe. Maybe. The way you look at me.  I never want you to stop looking at me.

And you want to see me again. I can’t believe it. 

Sending you back your gloves may be the bravest thing I have done in my life. I couldn’t just let go of you, but what a ridiculous thing to hope, that you would call me or come back or write me, something, anything to see you again. I’m still spinning just from the day in the store, how you walked away in that coat and winked at me and I felt like my bones dissolved on the spot, did you feel that too? And now we’ve had lunch and you want to see me again and what is this, Carol?

Everything in me seems to vibrate, some kind of chord like all the violins hold but everything else pulses deep bass notes under everything and I can’t stop thinking about you, how you are always brushing back your hair with your fingers or rubbing your neck with your hand or holding a cigarette in your lips and how the color red seems like perfection and all I want to know is if your skin is as soft as the leather of your gloves and I don’t even know what I’m asking. Or if I ask what you’ll even say. 

I don’t even know what this is except I never want it to stop, and thank you. Thank you.

~ T


	3. Salt, Butter, Cream

December 19, 1952

Dear Carol ~

At the girls home – but I haven’t told you about the girls home. Where my mother left me, when I was 8. What will you think of that? Of me? Oh Carol.

Well, at the girls home, every Sunday the lunch after the church service was the same. Two slices of roast beef (or turkey, in winter), a scoop of mashed potatoes, gravy, a roll. We were supposed to be grateful for the special meal but the truth is it wasn’t very good. No taste. No salt. The gravy was grayish and thin, the meat tough, the potatoes bland. The roll was the best part, warm with a smear of real butter, but we could only have one. Just one.

Most of the year there would also be green beans, oily and limp, or soggy broccoli. Carrots. But on special days, holidays and other times, Parents Weekend for example (that my mother never did come to, in case you were wondering) we got a special treat, according to the nuns anyway: creamed spinach.

I never understood creamed spinach. I don’t think they used real cream or maybe real spinach or real anything because it had no flavor. No savor, no salt. This watery mass of greenish stuff. I never understood it.

I did not even register at first what we had ordered yesterday, to be honest. I was too overwhelmed by the moment, by you, by your confidence, and not wanting to be distracted by a menu when I just wanted to – what’s the word I want – well, why would I want to look at a menu when you are there in front of me? So it was easier, faster, to just order the same, and I didn’t even realize.

Because I never understood creamed spinach. I probably would not have ordered it on my own. With poached eggs, no less. Who orders such a thing, for lunch? You, apparently.

Hear me smile as I say that to you.

Because now I understand. The brilliant dark green of it. And I never knew something could taste like this. The real cream, the yolk melting in like sunlight, the butter, not only salt but something else too, nutmeg? I would never have imagined. Flavors that go on and on. So rich, Carol. The difference that salt makes. The difference that flavor makes.

Oh Carol.

What I am trying to tell you is, my life was like a watery, tasteless mass of something people kept telling me was good for me, special, but it had no flavor.

Until you walked up to my counter. Until we ate together yesterday. And suddenly there is salt and cream and butter and spice and an utter richness to life that my mind doesn’t quite comprehend but that I can’t stop wanting to savor in my mouth, again and again, and maybe this is what it means to eat, to be alive.

The difference that salt makes, Carol.  
  


~ T

 

P.S. In case you think I’m any calmer today than yesterday, let me assure you that writing this has left me just about undone, I don’t even know what I’m saying and have no words, none, for what I feel in my body now. None of the words I was taught are this, except maybe heat, and blush, and ache. And even just these words: butter and cream and salt on my tongue – make me shy because what if you don’t even know what I mean, and overcome because what if you do know what I mean and how will I ever survive such joy if you do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this letter came about because I had a dear friend over to watch the film and she said, let's cook something from "Carol" for our supper, and so of course we made creamed spinach and poached eggs, and I was shocked that it was so good. And then she said, you have to add this to your story. So here you go. :-)


	4. Shopping List

Carol inhaled deeply, shifting her shoulders and stretching her toes.  Carefully setting the letters back on the table, she gazed into space, stunned and breathless.  She had suspected , of course, Therese’s awe in those first days, but to read her rushing, swirling swooning on the page was overwhelming.  _My Therese is a poet, too_ , she thought, as she rose in a single, graceful motion and walked towards the desk.  

Finding a pad of letter paper and a pen, she made her way to the kitchen table and sat down.  Tearing off the top page, she wrote with a flourish across the top:

MARKET

And then began to make a list:  spinach (2 lbs) , salt (check), cream, nutmeg, eggs…

Tapping the end of the pen against her lip, Carol reviewed the list and nodded to herself.  Taking a deep breath, she set the list aside, pulled the pad to her and began to write.

> _July 10, 1953_
> 
> _Dearest ~  
>    
>  _

For a moment, Carol’s breath caught in her chest, remembering the only other letter she had written to Therese, which began the same way.  Carol sighed, giving herself a shake. _All the more reason_ , she thought, _all the more reason.  Dearest. Yes._ She began to write again.  
  


> _I’ve read two of your letters now (with a drink, as you requested) and I’m astounded.  I know you have the soul of an artist, your  photography makes that clear, but a poet ~ well, I have known it in my heart (and my body) but to see it on the page is quite something else altogether. Two letters in and you’ve left me breathless already._
> 
> _You may find it amusing that I am writing you a letter in response to your letters, when you will be home in a few hours and I can tell you in person my thoughts, between a thousand kisses for how you delight me, how you have delighted me from the beginning._
> 
> _Your letters, they are a treasure: Your thoughts, your questions, your wonderings on paper that I can hold in my hands.  I thought perhaps I would return the favor, so that you would have letters of mine now. And letters, to be honest, more than the only one I have written you, which caused you immense pain. No, love letters now. Love letters._
> 
> _So let me first say:  Thank you for going to lunch with me.  Yes, I was nervous.  I thought I hid it better but now I know how perceptive you are, my seeing one.  You intrigued me and I wanted to know who you were.  More than that, I wanted to know if you felt what I felt, and so I was nervous because one cannot just come out and ask such a thing, as we’ve talked about.  _
> 
> _Ah, this is not what I mean to say at all.  Darling, let me begin again._
> 
> _I remember those first days so clearly. Over the months we were apart I held them in my mind, before my eyes, in my hands like I hold your letters now, recalling each moment, their sweet confusion (yes even for me). The memories of you, of us in those first days, kept me alive as much as the memories of our trip.  
>  _
> 
> _I remember the moment I looked up to find you watching me in Frankenberg’s.  I don’t know why I caught your eye but you caught mine and have never let go.  Your eyes, the most brilliant green I had ever seen.  Lonely eyes, that seemed so out of place surrounded by the banality of a department store, and knew themselves to be so.   You looked at me without judgement, open, curious. My darling, in the world I come from all is constant scrutiny, and scorn for the slightest fault.  As if all I am is a vessel, an object._
> 
> _But you were different. You beheld me, obviously struck but also seeking, searching, something I had not experienced before.  So I came to your counter…you were human with me.  Not a shop girl. A human, who went breathless over trains (and perhaps more than trains, we admit), and so when I received my gloves from you I too took the risk to find you. This strange girl who told me she loves trains instead of dolls and who wasn’t repressed by a stifling department store.  Who opened up to me in that moment. You see, dearest, flung out of space. I had not ever met anyone like you, and I wanted to know you more. My heart, it leapt when I opened the package with my gloves and your note (which I still have ~ though without your name, I consider it my first love note from you).  
>  _
> 
> _I have often wondered if it was fair that I knew ~ at least somewhat for you were and are new for me as well ~ what I was feeling, and for you it was all new.  I knew soon into our lunch that you were smitten with me, even through my somewhat clumsy efforts to draw out where you were in your life, in your relationships.  My moment of distance that you noticed ~ I asked myself: Were you free? Could you be? Would you, for me? If I risked asking, would you risk saying yes?  
>  _
> 
> _I need not have worried.  Because yes, yes you would.  
>  _
> 
> _I am not as gifted as you with words. As you know I am more apt to express myself by utterly indulging you.  So let me finish this letter by saying:  Darling, I’ve just finished a shopping list to cook a meal for us tomorrow night. Creamed spinach, poached eggs, and all the warm, buttered rolls you can eat.  How I adore caring for you in this way. You deserve all the richness life has to offer and I will spend my life assuring you have all the salt, butter, and cream on your tongue that you can possibly savor.  
>  _
> 
> _Because yes, my dearest, I know (and I knew then) exactly what you mean.  
>  _
> 
> _Your beloved_
> 
> _Carol_

 

Carol smiled softly to herself, and walked back to the sofa, folding her letter in half and setting it on the coffee table.  She took a small sip of the whiskey, settled onto the couch, and picked up the stack of Therese’s letters to continue reading.  With the opening lines she let out a contented sigh.


	5. Tomorrow

December 20, 1952

Dear Carol ~

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow you are picking me up and taking me to your house. I can hardly sit still.  I feel like I’m holding my breath, until I see you again and you breathe life back into me.

The way you say my name, Carol.

When you called earlier to arrange where to pick me up, your voice was like a bow drawn low across me, a cello, pulling out notes I don’t even know I can sing.  I wonder if this is how you feel. 

I was afraid at first you were going to cancel, that maybe you had changed your mind, but you didn’t. You hadn’t. You’re still coming, you asked what I liked to eat (anything with flavor, I told you, and you laughed, how I love to make you laugh), we still have a date.

Do I mean a date? Oh God, I don’t know what I mean, only that tomorrow I see you again. Again.

I wonder what your house is like. I’ve never been to Ridgewood but I know how New Jersey is, what kind of place your town is, who lives there. Not people like me.  Surely your house is something bigger, better than my tiny apartment here, scruffy and dented, that needs new paint to match everything that feels new in me.  I imagine your house is elegant, full of beautiful things but simple too, like you, and perhaps some hidden places that you will let me see.

Better to have you pick me up at work, than have you see this tiny old place in comparison.

When I think about how elegant you are, jewelry and furs and perfume, your perfect red manicured nails (oh god your hands), I wonder how I fit in your world.  Carol, I wonder what you see in me. Then I close my eyes, and remember how you looked at me in the store, how you looked at me at lunch, how you turned and waved and smiled before driving off with your friend, and maybe it doesn’t matter that my apartment is tiny and my life is tiny, because when you look at me you make me feel grand, and new, and like I matter. To you.

Could I matter to you? Already?  It’s only been a few days and I’ve already forgotten the rest of my life. Richard’s asking questions and I just want him to go away. He’s like - Wonder Bread, supposedly good for you but tasteless and plain.

You are a banquet of the richest foods I never imagined I would ever be invited to taste.

What am I in comparison to that?

But you are coming tomorrow, you are still coming tomorrow, and you will take me to your home, and maybe you will tell me how you feel, do you feel this too, Carol, this thing I don’t have a name for, that nobody has ever explained to me, who has ever had words for this, but if you feel it too, this aching hum under my skin, in my belly, this reckless wanting to see you again, and again, and again, then maybe it’s real. Maybe this could be real.

Tomorrow.  Time seems interminable until then.

~ T


	6. Paused Between

Carol glanced at the date at the top of the next letter.  Yes, December 21st, the visit to her old home.  She rubbed the back of her neck with a deep breath; she had a feeling what was coming.  Scanning the room quickly, she got up and pulled a wide photography book off a nearby shelf; she settled back down on the couch, pulling the writing paper and pen into her lap, using the book as a writing surface.

~  ~  ~

July 10, 1953

Letter #2

My Dearest ~

I wish that you were here. Surely you know how proud I am of you and how you are thriving in your work, and I’m thinking of you out on your first major photography assignment tonight and how much you must be enjoying it.  Nevertheless I miss you, and reading your letters, full of such tenderness and vulnerability and insecurity and bold awakening, makes my heart ache. Ache with a kind of sweet sadness for what you were going through, and ache with awe at not only your way with words but also your choosing to see me (a date, well, you are not wrong!), to keep stepping towards me and what your feelings for me meant even though it was new and overwhelming and confusing. Such immense courage.

I am paused between your letters of December 20 and 21. If you were here I would hold you and tell you yes, you did matter (to me, and not only to me), and you do. I would hold you and kiss you as if I could comfort the Therese of 6-some months ago, as if you need comforting now. Perhaps you still do.  I would hold you and tell you how amazing you are, in your own quiet astounding way.  Ah that you would come home soon.

I shall tell you a secret:  I hated that house in Ridgewood.  So large and empty and cold, even before H. left.  An absurdity. Who needs something so large, that requires assistance simply to not let its upkeep overwhelm.  Those months when I was alone, without  Rindy, without you, in that empty, dark house, were unbearable.  I am glad to be rid of it.

I hate that it intimidated you, even in your imagination.  Please know I so much prefer our life now, cooking and cleaning and providing for ourselves, in both our homes, which does feel somewhat extravagant still, but necessary, at least for the time being.  And they are ours.

And I love our apartment here, with its beautiful new keys in my hand. I noticed that you painted right away, remember? That first night coming here from the Oak Room?  Fresh and new for all that was new in your life, how it suited you, I told you then. I remember you telling me the next day that the bright light blue reminded you of the sky at sunrise, that you had painted yourself a perpetual sunrise sky around you and now the sun was in your arms.  My dearest, darling poet.  How could I ever not utterly adore you? No comparison to anything would give me as much joy, as much life, as you do.

Ache is a word that I know well, from all sides. How I ache for you now, in the best way, as I continue on with your letters to the next day, “tomorrow,” and wait for you to come home to me.

I am ever yours,

Carol


	7. The Longest Night of the Year

Sunday, December 21, 1952

Dear Carol ~

Oh god Carol.

I’m breathless, breathtaken, still breathing a miracle.

Ever since you put your hands on my shoulders at the piano, you took my breath away and I never wanted to you to let me go and I feel like I can’t breathe, Carol, and why did you hang up now, me left here with a thousand questions and your voice in my ears and feeling your hands still on my shoulders and I swear I could feel your breath in my ear through the telephone, Carol.

Carol, what is happening to me? 

I can’t decide if I want to call you back and yell at you (only a little, for a moment, for hanging up, until I can hear your breath in my ear again), or cry (again) or sing or get back in a taxi and go back to your house and hold you and never let you go and why did you hang up? Carol, I did not know I could hold so many feelings in this body, how is this possible? Carol, joy and anguish and fear and excitement and god, Carol, here is the word I have been searching for for days, love, oh god, help me. All of these things in a day, Carol, how am I still standing? How am I still breathing? Why am I not getting back in a taxi right now to fly to you?  Oh god, why did you hang up? 

Ask me things, you said, ask you things, didn’t you?

But Carol, there are things I don’t have to ask.  I don’t have to ask if you are safe, because clearly you are not. I don’t have to ask if he has hurt you because I watched him do it. I watched you flinch, Carol, like there is a history in your skin. I don’t have to ask if you are sad, or afraid, or lonely, I can see it in your eyes, in your sudden distances that leave me gasping after you until you come back and leave me gasping again.

I don’t have to ask if he disdains me, because he does. I only care because I think that makes you unhappy, and I want you to be happy, and I am beginning to think perhaps I make you happy, the way you looked at me when you said “invite me ‘round” and your voice when you said it, do you know what your voice does to me, Carol? What I mean to say is, I don’t care if he hates me, I only care that it makes you unhappy, perhaps he makes you feel even less safe now. I saw how he looked at me, how you put your shoes back on as if he had found you, us, oh god, naked, as if he had walked in on something private, something neither of us wanted him to see.

Well, hadn’t he?

There are things I don’t have to ask.

What I would ask you, Carol, is do you know how magnificent you are? Do you know that you deserve to be happy? To be treated with care? I would ask you, what does your heart most long for? Carol, what do you want for your life?  I would ask you, would you let me help? What can I do?

The same question I asked when you came inside, and you snapped at me, and I understood and it still hurt, like a finger flicked hard against a bruise, and that was the moment I realized how much I feel for you, and that I could wring his neck with my bare hands for causing you so much pain, because I know you did not mean to hurt me, you were not fine, and still I just stood there like an overwhelmed child, silent, taking it, and wept in the train all the way home.

Wept for my own heart and my own feelings, how overwhelming and joyous and so alive and so aching hurt, and would I see you again, and what did this mean for us, and Carol I wept for you, how exquisite you are and don’t actually seem to know it and certainly not treated as such by him and you deserve so much better.

And I wept Carol because would I ever know the answer to this question, this one that rode with me on the train all the way home

It feels utterly selfish of me to ask you

what would have happened, between us, you and me

Carol

What would have happened if Harge had not come?

Am I yet brave enough to write down what I hoped? What I imagined while I was sitting in the train shaking from how you make me feel?

Ask me things, you said, ask me things.

What would have happened?

The way you put your hands on my shoulders, the way you spoke so gently and smiling in the car, the way you flirted (yes? yes I think you did, and maybe I did too, a little) your way into saying you wanted to come to my apartment (which means you want to see me again), what would have happened next? Would I have finished playing the piano and come sat next to you by the train, would we have talked more, would we have had another whiskey and what next Carol?

Carol, if you wanted to touch me, I would let you.

Because Carol, it is the dead of winter, the longest night of the year (and it feels like it in my breathless heart) and * _I feel I am in love with you and it should be spring. I want the sun throbbing on my head like chords of music. I think of a sun like Beethoven, a wind like Debussy, and birdcalls like Stravinsky. But the tempo is all mine._ *  The tempo of whatever this dance is that we are doing, but I think I love you, and I think you feel something for me or you would not have cared enough to call me, to apologize, to ask to see me again even still. I heard the way your voice shook, like it means something to you how I feel about you.

There in words, on paper, it feels momentous, and like the most natural thing, all at once. To tell you I love you.  Even though I don’t even know if this is possible.  Is this possible, Carol?  But I don’t know what other words to give all the things I feel for you, have felt for you in this one, singular, astounding day.

I am remembering how you brushed your hair back over your ear in the Christmas tree lot, how the gesture mesmerized me and made me pull out my camera even though I knew there was no way I could capture the moment in the same way it (you) captured me. 

You see the thing is, it’s not that I was not interested in humans, exactly.  To consider for my photographs, to consider for what maybe, some day, could be art.  No, the thing is that I never found a human interesting enough to consider. Until I met you.

I don’t just mean that you are beautiful though Carol, certainly you are.  In red and angles of cheekbones and softness and elegance.  Your hands. Your voice. Yes.  But that is not what makes you magnificent.  I think of your kindness, the shine and wink of your eyes, the sweetness of your nervousness, how playful you are with your daughter, the way you make me believe in more of myself just by inviting me into your life.

You know? Carol, I’ve never wanted to show anyone my photos, not really, until you.  You make me feel like they could be art, even though you haven’t even seen them yet. Like you believe in something about me that I don’t even know yet.

And what I mean is, the ways you let me see you as human, nervous, shy, bold, tender, angry, protective, even broken, in the way that I heard you on the phone just now, tonight. (Had you been crying, too? Oh Carol.)  And I want to tell you, perhaps you feel ashamed at what I saw tonight, how he treated you, as if I would feel less for you now, but I don’t.  I don’t feel less, if anything I feel more, even after you snapped at me, I feel more, and I didn’t even know that I could feel this much about anything, anyone, Carol.

I feel so alive, Carol.  Even the ache of it makes me feel more alive.  
  
  


Carol, I’ve sat here for five minutes, just running the day through my mind.  I don’t want to stop writing you because I don’t want this day, this day with you even through this letter, to end.

And then I remember, you are coming tomorrow.  You are coming here.  Carol, you want to see me again, after all this, how is this possible, I know I keep coming back to this question, and I will keep asking it over and over until perhaps together, we find an answer.

Tomorrow. Another tomorrow, with you.

Tomorrow, I will see you again. For a time, on the train, I did not know if that would ever happen again.

Tomorrow, I will go find the record for you, Billie Holiday singing the song I played for you, Easy Living (“there’s nothing in life but you”).  (Do you realize I played you a love song?  Oh Carol, what is happening to me? Who is this woman I’m becoming, that I would play you a love song? How did I get that brave?).

Tomorrow, I will clean this apartment until it shines, for you.

Tomorrow, I will set out all my favorite photographs for you to see.

Another tomorrow with you, Carol. I will wait, aching and joyous, until then.

Even though part of me still wants to fly to you, right now, in the middle of this longest night.

Love,

Therese

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These lines are all Patricia Highsmith's own: *I feel I am in love with you and it should be spring. I want the sun throbbing on my head like chords of music. I think of a sun like Beethoven, a wind like Debussy, and birdcalls like Stravinsky. But the tempo is all mine.* This is one of two glimpses of Therese's letters we get in the book.


	8. A Praying Woman

Carol’s hands trembled as she set Therese’s letters on the coffee table. She fumbled in the pockets of her robe for her handkerchief, swinging her feet to the floor and drying the tears running down her cheeks.  She leaned forward, hands braced on the edge of the couch, trying to calm her breathing.  For several moments she remained in that position, eyes closed. 

Finally, with a deep sigh, Carol opened her eyes and stood up, making her way to the kitchen.  She filled the kettle with water for tea.  While she waited for the water to boil, she slowly paced between the living room and kitchen, rubbing the back of her neck, eyes wandering but not settling anywhere.  When the kettle whistled, she jumped, surprised, then laughed lightly at herself, pouring the water over the tea bag into the cup.  Back at the couch, she blew gently across the surface of the hot tea, took a careful sip, then set the cup on the table to pick up the book, paper, and pen once again.

~ ~ ~

July 10, 1953

Letter #3

My Dearest Therese ~

I am not a praying woman, but I have just spent several minutes willing you to come up the stairs and back into our apartment, back into my arms.  Alas!  I’m ridiculous, I know; by the clock you should not be home yet for at least another couple of hours.  Nevertheless, you have these letters from me now, capturing in the moment my own raw responses to your letters, which is something beautiful in and of itself.

I remain astounded by your writing, darling, and even moreso the depth of your feeling, how much you perceive, how much is always going on inside that beautiful mind of yours.  I echo your own question, how is this possible, that you are so amazing, and thoughtful, and are mine?

We have never really talked about that day when you came to my house (so like us, though we are changing that now, aren’t we, dearest?).  For a brief moment, in the car, on the way to Waterloo, but not really. 

To be honest I feel somewhat overwhelmed by my own feelings about your letter, my own memories about that day, and am finding it difficult to put down into words what it is that I mean to say.  Darling, I think there are things I want to tell you about that day, in person, when I can hold your hand, and see your kind face.  Things about shame, and pain, and my own questions.

(How did you know me well enough to know I felt shame about that night? To be honest, I still do.  I think perhaps you know this, too.)

So those things, I want to talk to you about, when you are home again, with me. 

Your question is so wise:  How can a body hold so many feelings at once?  Shame and guilt, joy and exhilaration, love and anguish?  All of those and more I felt that day.  The hard things I will tell you when you can see my eyes, and I yours.  The good things, the beautiful things, though ~

I remember riding in the car with you, how quiet you were, but watchful. I wanted so for you to feel at ease but the stillness in the car crackled, do you remember?   Do you remember how the light changed as we came through the tunnel, from cold brightness to a gentleness as the snow began to flurry? I remember your grin when I suggested we stop and get a tree. I wanted to take your hand when you finally relaxed.

And I will confess that I knew you were taking my picture (I was sly later, asking you), I knew you were watching me, by then I knew just how it felt, to have your eyes on me, still one of my favorite feelings, your eyes on me, watchful, attentive, knowing.  I brushed my hair back knowing you were watching, knowing that you liked it (I pay attention too, darling).  So yes, I suppose you could say I was flirting, though quietly, perhaps, in a way I could deny if I turned out to be wrong.

I’m so glad I was not wrong.

I remember your sweetness with Rindy, your patience and again, watchfulness as she and I decorated the tree.  You were so quiet and gave us space, and I remember your smile, tender and small, when Rindy brought you the gold angel and invited you to hang it on the tree. I did not know then your own distant relationship with your mother and I wonder now what that was like for you, to be there with us.

Oh Therese, my heart, you at the piano.  How your hands slid across the keys as I asked you about photographing me.  How you stayed looking at me, “It’s going well, actually.”  I remember that so well, feel in my body even now how it made me feel, a shiver up my spine.  You do realize, darling, you are also mesmerizing.  I confess (again, it seems I am full of confessions tonight) I knew the song you were playing, and wondered, up until the moment you looked at me, like that, if you had really meant to play me a love song.  And then you looked at me with that smile with the slightest bit of mischief, and I realized that yes, yes you had.  Knowing your bravery made me brave, to come to you, to rest my hands on your shoulders. I felt how breathless you became. How still, and full, the room became.

Oh my love.  What if he had not come? Honestly, I don’t know what would have happened.  Even though we had that moment at the piano, I still wanted to take such care with you, to be sure of what you wanted.  Surely, we would have continued that dance, at your tempo, as the evening went on, and I would have followed your lead.  I had imagined, certainly, you staying longer, hoped to perhaps have other moments as we did at the piano.  Perhaps I would have made you stay the night (in another room to be sure), and perhaps, just perhaps, I would have touched your cheek gently, slowly, after tucking you into to bed and bringing you your hot milk (because I would have asked, and we know you love your hot milk at bedtime, even boiled with a scum as I am so apt to do…).

I remember how content I was, the whole day, with you. I keep saying “quiet” and “gentle” and I would say, too, tender and graceful and shy and wondrous.  Something like peace. Something like whole.  I love (and loved then, is what I mean too) how you just let me be, no pressure to perform or be anything other than just myself.  Such freedom.

Would that the whole day, the whole evening, had continued that way. Growing to know each other, find more ease with one another.  I’m so struck in your letter that you were already finding the words for love and yes, I think that too.  Falling in love.

We will talk later, about that rest of that evening.  But I want to tell you, the moment I snapped at you was also, like you, the moment I realized how much I felt for you, because I immediately knew I did not want to hurt you.  As lost as I felt, it mattered to me that I had hurt you.   (Even though Abby had to kick me, it’s true).  And you were still there, you didn’t run, as I told you that day in the car, you wanted to help, you tried to be kind. 

The way that you are so grounded in kindness, dearest, is something I love so about you.

 

Now, my darling, I am the one running over the day in my mind.  You can yell at me, a little, for hanging up on you that night. (I think we know now that we can survive you yelling at me, a little).  Yes, I was crying.  I was relieved you forgave me and overwhelmed you wanted to know, well, things after all you had seen (and how I had hurt you).  When I heard the burst of the crowd in the background, I confess (here I am confessing again, and in need of your absolution) I gave in to fear, to my overwhelm.

But when I hung up, I wept. For me, for my life unraveling, for this unexpected gift of you, for you, for your forgiveness, and yes, for the possibilities lost to the what if…

I have such complicated feelings about that day.  Like you, I suppose, though not the same. As you say, how can a body hold so many feelings at once? 

What feels momentous to me now is that I want to talk to you about it all, all of the hard parts of it. I don’t want to hold that in, the way I did before.  I want to see you, to tell you about the shame, the hurt, because if I can see you, the way you hold me with your eyes, your heart, then perhaps it will be all right in the end.

Perhaps what I mean to say is, I need you. The way you hold me and love me and forgive me and  free me.

 

You are my dearest heart.

Your Carol

  
P.S.  All that we have survived, my darling, is it not amazing that we are here?  How is this possible?  I am overwhelmed with gratitude, and I am not a praying woman.


	9. Enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not yet midnight here in my timezone, so happy 64th Waterloo anniversary, beloveds, and Happy New Year.

Monday, December 22, 1952

Dear Carol ~

Oh Carol.

Carol, Where am I?  Where are we? I feel like time is suspended, like the whole day up until the moment you knocked on my door is already a lifetime ago.  Between last night and now, a whole lifetime, and everything is changed.

To be honest this morning I woke up still reeling a bit from last night, almost as if I was hung over, not from the whiskey but from all the emotions of the whole day.  I was almost late for my shift, and spent the whole time there distracted, thinking of you (I don’t know who will be happier when I finish tomorrow, me or Miss Walls).  Women kept asking me for Bright Betsy dolls, and I would forget to breathe, and then I would look to see if you were standing by the train (you bought a train from me, Carol, of all things) but you never were, and I missed you.

All day I was delirious, bouncing between exhilaration (I get to see you again, remembering your hands on my shoulders, your whole face, eyes and mouth and eyebrows and how you held your head when you said “invite me ‘round, wondering what this night could be like) and, I guess the word is puzzlement, how you also shut me out, even once literally with a door.

Which I understood. I understand, I do. And…I’ve also watched this thing that you do, drawing close and then going distant, suddenly.  Quiet, eyes lost from me.  A door.   Telling me you’re fine when you’re not.  Hanging up.  I thought about that all day, at work. Your flirting eyes and the closed door.  I don’t know why you do this, is it something about me? If I could tell you how I feel (I wish I knew how to tell you how I feel) would that change things? Would you stay?

All I know is, every time you have come back to me, and I find myself hoping that you always will. 

Is this love, Carol?  To want you always to come back to me?  I know I’ve written this before but nobody has ever told me, explained to me, anything that feels like this, and I don’t understand it, and I can’t quite tell if you feel it too (I think you do? And then I wonder), and I don’t even know if I’m supposed to feel this. For you, I mean.  But I don’t know any other words for it, do you?

Oh Carol.  I spent the day wondering all these things, so it feels important to write them down, even though they feel so far away now. I bought your record (which now I have a whole new idea for when to give it to you).  I saw two women in the record shop and they looked at me as if they knew exactly what I was buying and for whom and why, and approved, and I supposed it should be a comfort but also they seemed so unlike you and I, I just felt shy and confused.  I fought with Richard, which is only worth mentioning because I told him I wouldn’t go away with him, or marry him…that I wasn’t ready.  It burst out of me, unexpected, exciting.

I cleaned the apartment (well, what was left after cleaning last night, I couldn’t sleep), put out my favorite photos for you, took your call when you called to ask my address (my heart flipped hearing your voice, you sounded happy to hear me too which made my heart flip again), washed up, ironed my blouse, dressed…and then waited for you.

All of that, all of it feels 10 years away. A lifetime.

Like you hung up, I went to sleep, dreamed this day, and woke to you knocking on my door.

You knocking on my door.

Oh Carol.  You standing there, drenched in red, shy and nervous (I can tell now, you see), beautiful, all of it, all of you, standing there.  You shy and nervous may be my favorite thing, the mood that tells me most about how you feel.  I nearly collapsed, breathless, I needed the wall to hold me up. 

I am breathless now, remembering.  You at my door.

I did not even realize the case at your feet until you pushed it towards me.  I wondered how you could have such bare ankles (I tried not to stare) when it’s so cold.  I did not understand the case, until later, but the camera I understood immediately.  An extravagant gift, a fine camera and so many rolls of film, Carol, but what overwhelmed me most was what it meant: That you heard me.  That you believe in me.

I was shy too, you know?  Inviting you in and taking your coat and showing you around the place.  It’s small.  It’s just me. 

Your coat, red warm wool full of the scent of you…

Where was I? Where am I, Carol?

I want to remember everything.

You were the one who asked about my photographs.   You looked at them with such…reverence.  I watched you, how you took your time, even though I was self-conscious, I wanted so for you to like them.  I had put the photo up of you from yesterday (was that just yesterday, could it have just been yesterday?) and just as you saw it I wondered if I had made a mistake, but I had not, had I?  You thought it was perfect, and I could have died on the spot.

If that had been all, Carol, it would have been enough.  You in my home, smiling, loving my pictures. It would have been enough.

When you went suddenly quiet and walked back into the living room, at first I thought oh, she’s gone again, but you weren’t, exactly, though I wasn’t sure at first. But you asked something of me, like you wanted me to follow you this time.

I never expected tears.  I never expected you to let me see them.  No door this time, but a threshold I was standing in, watching you in pain, and I could not stand for you to suffer alone, so I crossed through it, walked toward you.  Just you.

Carol.

Just you.  Enough.

How you trembled at my touch, and then you took my hand and Carol, it would have been enough just to hold your hand while you cried, to be company to you, comfort I think because you leaned into me, after a while, just your head against my arm, I could not believe it, and I held you, so still, so quiet, just an arm around your shoulder, until you were spent. 

It would have been enough.

I made us hot chocolate, with a shot of whiskey because you could not stop shivering, and you needed fresh air so you let me help you on with your coat and I wanted to just wrap us both in it, warm, red, you, but I guided us up, up onto the rooftop, where you told me the whole story, the injunction, how he’s trying to keep you from your own child. 

You are so full of kindness, trying to convince me his actions have nothing to do with me, though I don’t entirely believe you; it would not be a coincidence, would it? that this would happen after he found us together yesterday? I’m so sorry Carol, and you are so kind, and I still want to help.  But I was glad you told me, was glad you opened up to me, it was an amazing gift, and even that would have been enough, to be with you, just you, willing to share this with me.

Oh Carol.

For a moment, just a moment, when you said you were going away, my heart plunged three stories down to the ground, but then you made me fly, and I’m still flying, I’m astounded and dizzy.

You are going away, west. And you asked me to come with you.

Carol, how is this possible?

And all I can think of is your face when you asked me.  Your face, wrung out with tears and aching, eyes bare, nothing at all between you and me at last, and all I can think of is would you let me love you, like this, bare, unhidden, just you, you are enough Carol, do you believe that? You are beautiful, just like this, enough, just like this.  Would you let me love you, just like this? 

I don’t doubt what I feel for you now, I don’t care what anyone thinks, I don’t know how to tell you still, or if I even should but you wouldn’t ask me, the way that you did, or let me hold you while you cried, the way that you did, if you didn’t feel…something for me, would you?  Maybe? And now we have days, who knows how many, stretching into the infinite horizon west, and I am delirious and dizzy and flying.

Oh god, this night, this night, Carol, this night.  I am all out of words, Carol, for how you make me feel.

More than I ever expected, than I ever dreamed.

Love,

Therese

 

P.S. You should always wear red, Carol. Always.


	10. Every Yes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (y'all are the best to write for. that is all.)

For the first time since sitting down with the packet, Carol read the letter through again, her fingers tracing over the pages with a delicate wonder.  When she had finished the second reading she glanced down at her satin pajamas.  _What color do they call this, champagne? Peach?  No matter, it’s not red.  What do I have here in red?_   Rising, she gently set the pages on the table and went to the wardrobe in the bedroom, opening it up with a sigh.  She knew she did not have red pajamas, but was there anything else?

She fingered through her clothes.  The red coat ( _which will never, ever be given away_ ) was at the Madison place, since it was summer and there was more room there to store clothes.  Same with the blouse she had worn with the suit that night, and her red plaid robe, too heavy for summer.  She checked the clock to see if she had time to run over to Madison and find something, but decided the last thing she wanted was for Therese to come home and not find her there.

Finally she drew out a red silk headscarf that she liked; the gold thread that ran through the cloth matched her hair.  _It will have to do_ , she thought; _clearly I need more red in my summer wardrobe_.  In the bathroom she folded the silk into a thick band and arranged the scarf around her head and under her hair at the back of her neck.  _I’m ridiculous_ , she thought, tying off the knot, _this doesn’t match my pajamas at all, but damn if I don’t care_.

Satisfied, she headed back to the kitchen to heat up more water for tea.  As the kettle warmed she leaned against the sink, closed her eyes, and let her memories of her first visit to this apartment wash over her.  “Oh Therese,” she sighed as the kettle whistled and she pushed herself off the sink to turn off the flame.  She poured a fresh cup of tea and settled back onto the couch, reading the letter one more time before glancing at the clock ( _please come home soon_ ) and pulling paper and pen and book back into her lap.

  
~ ~ ~  
  


July 10, 1953

Letter #4

My dearest heart, Therese ~

What can I say?  You leave me breathless. 

Oh dearest.  That day.  Reeling and hung over describes it well.  You were distracted, wondering, confused, I was torn up about Rindy, rueful about the night before, yet hoping you would welcome me, my invitation to go west.

I wondered, too.  Wondered what the hell Harge was doing. Wondered what else he would find to hurt me.  Wondered if I would survive 3 months without my daughter.  Wondered what exactly you felt about Richard, you hardly spoke of him but he wanted to marry you; what did that mean?  Wondered if you would have me.  Wondered if I would see forgiveness in your eyes.  Wondered if you would say yes.  Wondered if my gift would seem so extravagant as to be inappropriate. 

The longest day after the longest night.

The morning had broken my heart, at the lawyer’s.  I remember how my hands shook, trying to light my cigarette in the street, in the little store alcove where I came upon your camera.  I couldn’t resist, darling, how could I?  I knew it would make you happy and I needed to make you happy, at least try. 

(And yes, I did believe in you (and do!), even without seeing your photos, because I saw how you paid attention to things, how you saw me, and I knew that was how you would see through your lens.  And you see, I didn’t make a mistake, did I?)

I stood there, finishing my cigarette, staring down at the camera sitting on the suitcase, wanting to run away but the thought of you tugged at me, there in that camera sitting on the suitcase, not wanting to leave behind whatever this new little bud of something was between us, that is if you would have me, and yes, I bought the camera, film, and suitcase all, a rash act of hope.  At lunch with Abby (well, yes. Of course I had lunch with Abby, I am smiling at my predictable self) she asked if I knew what I was doing and I told her I did not, but I did not care. 

I wanted you to come with me, even with all the questions. I told you on the road, I wanted you to come because of your kindness, your gentleness with me (Abby is exceptionally good at being angry, which is something I love about her and has helped me immensely, but even from that I needed a break), but also as I said above, to see what would happen, could happen between us, if there was the opportunity.  And there was the draw to you, after a point which there are no words to describe the mystery.

There is something, I think, almost inexpressible about how we were drawn to each other in those first days.  You have done such a beautiful job describing it in your letters (and I have tried in my own) but I think there is something left to mystery, too, of why we responded to each other the way we did.  Ultimately is there an answer to “why?” Why could you see me, why was I intrigued by you, why could we not stop finding excuses to see each other, talk to each other, and heavens you were then writing me every day, darling, every day, letters you thought (perhaps?) I would never see. Do you feel that way too, something joyfully wordless about our finding each other?

Oh how I remember coming up these stairs that night, full of hope and trepidation.  I was still nervous, embarrassed about how I had treated you the night before, wondering how you would welcome me.  I knew I would not really feel better until I saw you and could see in your face, your eyes, the forgiveness you had offered the night before.

When you opened the door I saw that and so much more. Like you, that moment at the door marked a shift in my whole day.  How your face lit up (how I saw, dearest, exactly what I needed to see), how you tilted into the door (flattering, I must say), how you were even more speechless than me with all my nerves (adorable even now as I remember it). 

I never expected to break down, in your apartment.  I never expected the tears, either. 

I had come wanting to share with you about the injunction. I knew from the night before I needed to talk to you more, needed to try anyway, so I was planning to do that, when the moment was right. But I never expected to cry.

The photo of me, the photo of you, I can’t explain it but the entire previous 24 hours flooded over me.  I had not expected it.  Here, on the arm of this couch where I am sitting now (isn’t life amazing), I thought for a moment I was lost, but then you were there. I remember how electric your touch was, how I reached for you, how you reached back. How your hand felt in mine.  Darling, how quiet you were, how still, how you just held me, how you didn’t seem to mind that I was, as you say, just me.  You were life to me in that moment, my love, and nothing was the same after that.

Do you remember in Chicago, that day we went to the post and you had 3 letters from Richard and I became moody? Until you let them drown in the lake and told me he was nothing to you? I had wrestled all that day with feeling that we would be just friends, because you were still with him I thought, and that you were such a good and kind and funny friend that that would be enough.

It would not have been enough, truthfully, but it also would have been enough if that’s all that could have been (thank the gods that it was not!). 

I’m remembering that in the context of that night here, because of your goodness and kindness and how I still did not know then, where things between you and him stood, and I felt you wanted more from me (with me) and yet I wanted to follow your lead.  All I could do was ask, not even always with words, and hope you would say yes.

The moment on the couch was like that, in a way.  Would you hold me if I let you see my pain?  Yes, yes you would.  That moment.  Oh Therese. My heart.

I will tell you this.  Reading your letter made me realize how I take responsibility for the mess of my life.  It is no one’s fault but my own, you see?  Not your fault, I tried to tell you that night, on the road to Waterloo when you asked, on the way back to Chicago when we stopped the car.  I said the same thing to Abby that day at lunch, that it was not her fault.  “It has nothing to do with you” I think I said that night to you.  Which was both true (my marital problems long pre-dated you) and also, as you suspected, not precisely true.  (I also remember you said you felt useless, like you couldn’t help, but darling, did you not realize how much you were doing already? How much you were helping? All along.)

I maintain the injunction and detective were not your fault, they were the fault of a man set out to punish me, with whatever excuse.  Nevertheless, you were known, you were named (as you know now), and rather than shouldering the whole burden myself it would have been well to talk to you. To decide together how to handle things.  I’m smiling to myself as I think how that seems to be a recurring theme for us, darling.

Oh dearest, I remember how your face fell well I first mentioned the trip.  So telling, your disappointment, and then how your face slowly lit up in quiet elation when I extended my invitation.  And then my own face lit up, I’m sure, as I truly smiled for the first time that day, (my smile at the door was too nervous to count!) and the snow began floating down over us, gentle like a blessing.

The moment at the door.  The moment at the couch.  The moment on the roof.  I’m not sure which of those convinced me that I had fallen for you, but all three of them together?  I just know I drove home that night already missing you, already undone, already counting the hours until I would pick you up on Christmas Eve.

How thankful am I that you said yes, my heart, how thankful am I? 

For every yes, such gratitude.  Such gratitude.

I am ever yours,

Carol

 

P.S.  If in red you want me, then in red you shall have me.


	11. Ordinary Day

> _…And all I can think of is your face when you asked me.  Your face, wrung out with tears and aching, eyes bare, nothing at all between you and me at last, and all I can think of is would you let me love you, like this, bare, unhidden, just you, you are enough Carol, do you believe that? You are beautiful, just like this, enough, just like this.  Would you let me love you, just like this?_

 

Carol’s fingers still traced along the lines of Therese’s last letter; she found she could not put it down just yet to continue on to the next one.  She decided to write again.

 

_P.S.S.  Don’t you think it’s amazing, dearest, how you wanted to love me, “bare,” as you say, and how I wanted you to?  How without saying a word we both wanted the same thing and found a way to offer it to each other? Would you love me if it was just me, broken, bare, no performance, no armor, just me? (Yes. I still swoon at your yes.)  I am still in awe of your letter, your deep wisdom (yes, we know you are young, but only in years darling), the revelation of what you were experiencing that night.  Without ever saying it aloud, how we knew.  A hand, a nervous smile, an invitation, a yes.  I cannot say I was completely aware, as you were, but somewhere deep, below the questions and the wonderings, I must have known.  I did know.  I still know._

_Perhaps the question for me back to you was, and is, would you let me love you utterly, would you believe yourself deserving, worthy of how much I indulge and spoil you?  Because you are, you are, and it brings me such joy to love you how you deserve.  A rich lunch, a drive to my house with coffee and later whiskey, a suitcase full of camera equipment, a journey west as far as we could go.  And my heart. All my heart, bare and wretched as it is, given to you._

_You ask early in your letter “where am I” and reading these letters of yours I am no longer certain where I am either.  I like the feeling, being slightly disoriented by you. I would like it better if you were home.  I see by the clock it should not be much longer now, darling, though my heart cares nothing for clocks and wants only you, back home again._

 

Carol read over her words and finally set the pages down, picking up the next letter from Therese with a long, smiling breath.

 

~ ~ ~

  
Tuesday, December 23, 1952

Dear Carol ~

My last day at Frankenberg’s (thank God) and all I could think of was you.  I kept remembering your shy smile at the door, your bare ankles, how it felt to have your head rested against my arm, how the snow seemed to embrace you in your rich red wool coat. 

I kept remembering your red blouse, the slices (is that what they’re called?  I know so little about fashion) on the front along the neckline that let your skin peek through.  I kept imagining what it would be like to run my fingers along those edges, to slip between them and feel your skin.  I questioned if I’m supposed to want to do that, if I’m allowed to, but I couldn’t help it.  If it’s wrong then why do my hands itch with wondering, why do my fingers tingle and my heart pound? Why do I feel a happiness like I have never before?

Miss Walls sent me home early, I kept putting doll boxes in the wrong place and dropping change.

I was not sad about that.

I went shopping instead.  For our trip. (Oh Carol, our trip, our trip, are there any sweeter words?).  I bought a new toothbrush, a new tube of toothpaste, a new compact.  2 new pairs of stockings.  Wrapping paper and a card for your present.  A red sweater.

I wonder if you will like me in red as much as I like you in it?

I paid my next month’s rent, and am now doing a bit of laundry.  Tomorrow I will pack and then you will pick me up and I will spend the night at your house, which almost makes me feel faint, and then what Carol?  Where will you take me?  Not that it matters, as long as I’m with you, and not that I am talking about anywhere specific that can be named on a map, but where are you taking me, Carol?  Where will we go, together?

Because surely you know by now that I will say yes.  Wherever you want to take me, I will say yes. However you want to take me, I will say yes. 

Carol, what more is there to say?

Love,

Therese

  
P.S.  How strange it is not to see you today, after the last 2 days we have spent together.  A strangely ordinary day, except that I feel I’m on fire. I miss you, and want to call you but feel suddenly shy.  I am listening for the phone in the hall, and in the meantime will be here, burning,  until you come tomorrow.


	12. Shy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you've been waiting for it. :-)

_Well that’s that_ , Carol thought, _tomorrow we go to Madison for I will have that blouse, I will wear it until there is nothing left of it_.  She shifted, glanced at the clock, and reached for her pen and paper.

 

~ ~ ~

July 10, 1953  
  
Letter #5

  
My Dearest ~

Let me tell you.

I know something of fire, reading your letters this night and waiting for you.  Oh, do I know something of fire, spending that day in between your rooftop and you back in my car again.

I know something of fire.

All that day I thought of you, wondered how it would be to journey with you, remembered the night before, the electricity of your touch and the elation in your eyes, and I paced that empty cold house, packing slowly, sipping my ryes.  Rindy gone.  You not there yet. Finally I had to leave, restless, and I went out and bought toothpaste (isn’t that funny?) and bottles of beer and whiskey, and a new coat, that navy one with the fur lining, do you remember?

All that day I thought

~ ~ ~

There was a sound of keys jangling in the door. Carol inhaled sharply, swinging her feet to the floor and setting down all the letters in a swift movement.  She arrived at the door just as it swung open, revealing Therese shoving her keys into her bag, just glancing up to see Carol standing there.  A wave of sudden shyness washed over Carol as she gazed at the other woman, and she found herself struck and speechless, as if she suddenly did not know what to do with her hands.

“Hi,” Therese said, trying to hold back a smile. 

“You’re home.”  Carol could feel her lips twitch, trying not to burst.

“Yes, yes I am,” and Therese’s mouth quirked into a grin.  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

“Oh!” Carol, flustered, waved with her hands and finally shifted to the side.  Her heart was racing, and she felt silly for being so nervous.  She closed the door as Therese stepped inside, set her bags down around the corner of the entryway, and turned back to Carol, putting her arms around her waist and pulling her to her.  Carol rested her head on top of Therese’s and wrapped her arms around her.

“I missed you,” Carol mumbled into Therese’s hair.

“Mmm, me too.” Therese squeezed tighter, and Carol, still feeling a buzz of nerves, kissed the top of her head.  Therese nuzzled her neck.  “Mmm, you smell good.”

“Do I?” Carol felt slightly faint, her knees weak.  The only response from Therese was warm lips pressed under her ear and down her neck.

“Tomorrow we’ll go to the Madison place.”  Her voice was breathy.  _I’m like a giddy schoolgirl_ , Carol thought.

“Is that so?”  Therese looked up into Carol’s eyes, her own twinkling in amusement. 

“Y-Yes,” Carol murmured.  “Yes, I want to cook for you.  And - all my red clothes are there.”

Therese cocked her head slightly, the corner of her mouth up in a grin.  “Oh?”

Carol just breathed, gazing.  “Yes.”

Therese reached up to caress Carol’s hair over her ear.  “Are you all right?” she asked with a gentle smile.  “You seem...”  
  
“Oh…”  Carol fluttered her hands.  “You’re here, you’re home.  Yes, I’m…never better,” and her eyes never left Therese’s as the younger woman leaned up and kissed her softly, and again.  Carol was not certain if she were lost, or found, as she tightened her hold around the other woman.   “Never better,” she whispered into parted lips.

Therese kissed Carol’s cheek, her chin, then pulled back to look into Carol’s eyes again. “You sure?”  They held each other around each other’s waists, gently swaying back and forth.

“Yes, darling, positive.  Why?”

Therese’s dimples showed.  “It’s just…it’s unusual to see you so flustered, that’s all.  Almost as if you’re shy all of a sudden.”

“Oh well,” Carol began, feeling herself warm with a blush, “well I’ve been reading your letters, you see. They’re so full of…you, and emotion, and…well to have you here again in the flesh, I guess I do feel a little shy.”

Therese squeezed her waist.  “You read them.”

Now it was Carol’s turn to be amused.  “Well of course, darling! And they are so amazing I’m not even sure what day it is.”  She reached out and cupped Therese’s cheek, caressing with her thumb as Therese rubbed her cheek into the palm.  “You’re amazing.”  She felt a shiver up her spine as Therese kissed the palm of her hand, and sighed.

“I suppose I should actually let you come in, and not just keep you here at the door,” Carol winked, and Therese laughed lightly as they parted, squeezing hands. 

“Yes, I suppose you should,” Therese responded, with a last quick kiss to the back of Carol’s hand.  She turned to pick up her bags.  “By the way, very cute, the scarf.”

“Oh, that.”  Carol raised her hands to her hair, patting at the scarf to make sure it was still in place and tidy.  “You know. Red. I can’t believe it’s the only thing I have here.” Therese rose up with her bags and turned back towards Carol, who watched her face as she puzzled it out and then broke into a huge smile.

“Red.  Yes.  Always!”  Her eyes sparkled and Carol felt giddy with it, again.  They headed into the living room as Therese began to put her things away.

“How was your day, darling?  The event?” Carol leaned against the entryway to the kitchen, content to watch her love move about the room.

“Long.  Good.  Though politicians drink way too much.  But I think I got some great photos.  A few should be in the paper Sunday.”

“I’m so proud of you.  I know this was important for you.” 

“Thank you. Yes it was.”  Her eyes spotted the roses.  “Carol, these are beautiful.  The two yellow ones…” 

Carol joined Therese at the table by the window.  “You and I.”  She gulped as she watched Therese’s fingers trace the edge of the blooms. 

Therese leaned back into Carol’s chest, tilting her head back onto Carol’s left shoulder, and Carol put her arms around her as they both gazed at the roses.  “God I missed you today,” Therese murmured. “The work was good, I loved it but…” she inhaled, “I missed you, like hell.”

“Me too, darling, me too.”  She kissed above Therese’s right ear.  “You have no idea.”

They stood like that for a long moment, breathing together, Carol rocking Therese ever so lightly in her arms.  The nerves at the door had settled into a hum under her skin, which she was quite aware of but felt no need to rush.  She kissed Therese’s head, then slid a hand under her hair to bare the nape of her neck, lingering her lips along the hairline until she felt Therese shudder. She smiled against Therese’s skin.

“Darling, don’t you want to get out of those clothes? Get more comfortable? You’ve been in them all day.”

“As a matter of fact,” Therese turned with a kiss to Carol’s jaw, “I do.  And my feet are killing me.”

“Well, why don’t you change?  Then…there’s more Bushmills here. I’ll rub your feet.”  She waved towards the table, and saw Therese’s eyes register the bottle, the teacup, the two neat stacks of paper, the pen and book.  Her eyebrows twitched, puzzled and amused.

“You’ve read them all, then?  My letters?”

“Well actually, no, I” –

Therese laughed.  “No?  What happened, it’s been hours!” 

“Well darling, it’s just…well I read them slowly, first of all.  And then one of them I read - was it four times?”

“Four?!”

“Yes, four I think.  And then…well then I started writing you back.  In fact I was writing you when you came home.”

“You…you wrote me letters?”  Therese’s face showed a happy astonishment.

“Yes, darling.”

“Oh Carol,” Therese was in awe.  “I never expected…”

“Dearest, go change.  I’ll read your last letter and then rub your feet while you read mine.  How does that sound?”

“God, like heaven.”

Carol smiled.  “Go on then.  I’ll pour your drink.  Don’t leave me long.”

Therese smiled back.  “As if I would ever,” and she kicked off her shoes.


	13. Christmas Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love this fandom. Enjoy!

Therese had decided on a quick shower to wash off the day (“those oily politicians, ugh”).  “Shall I give you a hand, darling,” Carol had asked, voice pitched low, sultry.  Therese had laughed. “As much as I would love that, I really want to read your letters and if you ‘give me a hand’ I might never get to them.  Go get ready for me, I won’t be long.”

Carol tidied up the coffee table, making sure Therese’s letters were alternated with her own, and set a glass with a few fingers of whiskey on the corner of the table near where Therese would sit on the couch.  She had brought a jar of skin cream in to rub into Therese’s feet, and set it near her own glass.  Finally she settled onto the couch to read the last letter.

A quick glance confirmed what Carol knew already:  this was the last of Therese’s letters. After this, they were together, until – _well_ , Carol thought, _we are here now_. She felt an odd pang of – was it nostalgia, or guilt? – and shook her head.  _Don’t be daft_ , she told herself with a quick sip of whiskey.  _She’s here now.  She’s right here._   She tilted her head back with a deep breath, then exhaled as she looked down and traced her fingers over the letter’s date.

 

~ ~ ~

Wednesday, December 24, 1952

Dear Carol ~

I’m ready.

I’m sitting here at the kitchen table, my suitcase packed.  My foot is tapping with nerves, excitement.  I’m ridiculously ahead of schedule but I don’t want to lose a moment, once you are here.

I’m ready, Carol.

I almost wrote that I feel like my life is beginning, will begin when you show up at my door, and I head out with you and not look back.  But that is not quite right. I feel like my life began the moment I saw you by the train set. Every day since has been a revelation inside me, color and light and sound and flavor and even what has hurt and been confusing has held its own kind of ecstasy, because it is you, and soon you will leave your house in your car and drive through the Lincoln Tunnel and across Manhattan. To me.  Life. 

Richard does not understand.  He came over – I did not ask him to but he did, and we fought, and he does not understand. Not that I expected him to, he understands nothing, how could he.  He knows nothing.  He kept saying I have a crush, that I’m in a trance, but he doesn’t understand.  He doesn’t understand that everything changed the moment I saw you.  He doesn’t understand being alive, a switch thrown, the conductor’s downbeat and the orchestra bursts into sound. He doesn’t understand that even if I had never seen you again after you bought the train set, I would never have been the same, and we would have had this same fight eventually, because I would not be his, not if it is possible to be this alive, this awake, every hair standing on end.  He doesn’t understand that this is no crush, to call it a crush is an insult to what I feel for you. He doesn’t understand that _*I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me,*_ and I never even knew I was parched and now I’m drenched and all I want is a thunderstorm, torrents that last all night and leave you the next morning feeling exhausted and electric and  alive.

He doesn’t understand and honestly I’m so bored with him, Carol, that after he slammed the door, I was glad I would never see him again.  Because I won’t.

Why am I telling you about him? Why am I wasting time and space on him when it’s you, it’s all you, it will only ever be you, Carol?

I will walk out that door with you and not look back.  Wherever we go from here, Carol, and I have no idea and don’t even care, as long as I’m with you, wherever we go, I know I won’t come back the same.  I am already not the same.

My foot won’t stop tapping.  I’m so ready, Carol, I can’t sit still.  The clock says you should be here in about 30 minutes, and I know you’ll be right on time, you’re always right on time, you showed up right on time in my life too, Carol, you know?

Somebody is playing Christmas music, down the hall.  That reminds me, I thought about packing my Santa hat for the trip, but it felt like too much maybe.  Too obvious. Just in case you feel differently than me (I don’t think so but just in case). I already have your Christmas present and the red sweater and maybe that’s enough. I get shy when I’m around you, all these thoughts and feelings that pour out on paper and then with you…I don’t know, I get tongue-tied and flustered inside, how you make me feel, and I guess I just want to be.

But you should know that I kept it.  Oh, but I hated that hat, that stupid hat I was forced to wear, until the very moment you stopped, turned around, and told me you liked it, and winked at me. In that moment I knew I would keep this hat, always.  I still melt when I remember, feel warm and I don’t know how to give this feeling in my body words, nobody ever taught me the right words, Carol.  Do you know the right words?

20 minutes.

Oh Carol.

Tomorrow is Christmas.  Tomorrow is Christmas and everyone is singing Gloria and do you know, Carol, that even after 10 years at the Episcopal girls school, they never taught me what blasphemy is? (They never taught me a lot of things, apparently).  I still don’t know what it is.  Is it blasphemy, Carol, to love you? Is it blasphemy to want to sing Gloria into your mouth?

Because I don’t even care if it is.

Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Oh god, you’re here. Early.

Maybe you’re ready, too.

There is your footstep on the stairs.

Oh Carol.

Love ~  
Therese

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Patricia Highsmith's line of course: "I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me."


	14. Gloria

_Is it blasphemy to want to sing Gloria into your mouth?_

Carol swallowed, placing the last letter on the table and shifting her feet to the floor.  She stared down, not really seeing the rug nor the hardwood beyond.  She breathed hard, and gripped the edge of the sofa. She felt turbulent with emotion, remembering how yes, she had arrived as early as she thought she could get away with; how Therese had answered her at the door, coat on, suitcase in hand, indeed ready, walking right out and locking the door; how the tension in the car was thick with the unspoken; how they had both turned quiet after the initial rush of planning their route for the first few days; how they had sipped their whiskey on the upstairs porch, still and internal, Carol feeling a touch melancholy and restless.

Carol could see it in her eyes, the yearning, when she had brought the younger woman her hot milk and sat on the edge of her bed, and had dared to caress her cheek, just a single finger along the bone, before leaving her to sleep. She had paced her room for a long time, smoking and questioning herself, before finally going to bed.

All of these memories washed through her, quickly, and she closed her eyes with an ache for their searching silence, awe that they were here now, together, and an agitation that she could not quite place.  She tried to breathe deeply. _Why do I feel so shaky?_

“Carol? Are you all right?”

Carol had not heard Therese come in the room, and quickly turned her head to look at her with a startled breath.  She felt a release around her heart as she watched Therese towel-drying her hair, a look of kindness and concern on her face, already in her pajamas. _Her polka-dot pajamas_.

_Is it blasphemy to want to sing Gloria into your mouth?_

In the smoothest of motions that belied how agitated she felt, Carol rose and in two steps was in front of Therese.  She reached out, slowly as if in wonder, and took Therese’s cheek in the palm of her hand, drawing her thumb across the bone.  She searched Therese’s eyes, brilliant green after the shower, and saw nothing but gentle worry and a tender smile.

Therese reached up and cupped Carol’s hand in her own, turning her face slightly to kiss its palm.  “Are you ok?” she asked again.

Carol took a deep unsteady breath.  “The psychotherapist…” she began, and then stopped, surprised at what had come out of her mouth.

Therese tossed her towel to the couch and took Carol’s other hand.  “I’m here, Carol,” she softly assured her, giving her hand a squeeze, “it’ll be ok.”

Carol blinked, and began again.  “The psychotherapist, he tried to convince me…” She swallowed. A muscle twitched in her calf. “He kept using words like “ashamed” and “degenerate”…but I could not believe him…oh I pretended, for the sake of Rindy, but deep down” – she caressed Therese’s cheek again –“how could I believe him?”

Therese nodded slowly, listening attentively.  Carol felt a fierce wildness rising in her, like a blaze, like a rage she didn’t understand, and she stepped closer and took Therese’s face in both her hands. “How could I?” she repeated, and kissed the other woman with an intensity that caused Therese to gasp; Carol felt her start in surprise and then just as quickly relax as Carol slid an arm around her back and her other hand behind her neck. Therese’s arms folding around her made Carol feel like she was home after a long journey.

Carol pulled back, breathless, and gazed right into Therese’s eyes.  “What kind of God” – she kissed her Therese – “would say this is wrong?”  She kissed her again, with a nip to her lower lip. “What kind of God” – and she pulled Therese’s hand over her heart, kissing its palm first – “would call what you are to me, how you love me, how you heal me, how you free me” – with trembling hands she began fumbling at the top button of Therese’s pajama top – “how could any God who claims to love us not be happy for us, for this?”  Her hands shook and could not hold the slick surface of the button. “God dammit,” she muttered.

Therese’s eyes were wide, regarding Carol, and she put her hands over hers to still them.  “Here,” she murmured gently, “Let me.  You keep talking.”  Without her eyes leaving Carol’s she quietly unbuttoned her top as Carol sighed, shaking her head slightly.

“Oh darling.  I’m…your letter, you asked if it was blasphemy to love me.” She shifted her shoulders, trying not to be completely distracted by the sight of Therese unbuttoning her pajama top.  She felt a ferocity that would not be dispelled, and she stepped back, shifted her shoulders again, and began to pace.

“Do you know what I think is blasphemy?” she asked through clenched teeth.  “Wonder bread. And misery.  And being taught that...wonder bread and misery are what we have to settle for. That they’re _normal_ , hell, _that's_ blasphemy. Bruises.  Spies.  Insults. Taking a mother’s child. Being shamed for” – she drew a shaky breath – “for being _happy_ , for god’s sake. For wanting _salt_.”  She paced a few more steps, then turned back to Therese.  “If there is a God in the universe, and he isn’t rejoicing because we found each other, then” – she squeezed her hands into fists once, twice – “the men can fucking have him, because I’d rather have you.”

Carol registered Therese’s eyebrows rising in surprise as she reached for her, reached under her open top to feel her skin beneath her roaming, hungry hands.  She leaned in to take the tendon of Therese’s neck in her teeth, pressing just enough to feel Therese’s breath hitch in her ear. “This,” she breathed into Therese’s ear, “…you…you are the best thing I have ever known.”  And she kissed her again, hard, tongue pressing through teeth. 

“Carol…” Therese sighed, and Carol felt her arms tighten around her, fingers searching up the back of her neck, tangling under her hair.

“The best,” Carol murmured between Therese’s lips, and she didn’t ever want to let her go. She pulled her tighter, tighter still, until finally Therese giggled between kisses.

“You’ll break me in half if you’re not careful,” she smiled.

Carol loosened her hold with a sheepish grin, but did not let her go.  “I just…”

“What, Carol? What do you need?” Therese asked gently, with a look that made Carol shiver.  She took the slightest of steps back from Therese, pulling at the belt of her robe with both hands and shrugging the robe to the floor.  Her hands still trembled as she worked at the buttons on her own pajama top, the agitation that kept her shaking now shifting into a driving, humming force that made her feel wholly alive.

Without taking her eyes from Therese’s, she let her pajama top fall to the floor.

“You.  I need you.”

She smiled, shy and bold at once, as Therese smiled back at her.  Carol reached out and slid her hands under Therese’s top, over her shoulders, gently easing it off her body to the floor.  She put her fingers to the other woman’s lips, wondrous.  “How is this possible?” she whispered.

“What?” Therese breathed as Carol and drew her fingers down her chin, down her breastbone, and rested her palm in the center of her chest. 

“All of this,” Carol sighed, gazing at her hand, then back up to Therese’s face.  _So much kindness, so much kindness_ , she thought, and tears came to her eyes. 

“Oh Carol…” Therese took Carol’s face in her hands and kissed her eyes.  “I love you. You know I do.”

“I do, I do dearest, I’m just so” – and she waved her free hand – “happy!” It came out as a burst of a laughing joyous sob.  “These are happy tears, darling.”

Therese embraced her, then took her hand and began leading her toward the bedroom.  “Good.  I’m glad.  Now come on.”

“But…the letters…” Carol waved vaguely toward the couch.

“They’ll wait.  You won’t.”

“Oh my,” Carol mumbled under her breath as they reached the bed and turned to face each other. 

Therese slid her hands up Carol’s arms, unhurried but deliberate.  “Now tell me what you need.”

Carol gulped.

“Sing to me.”

Therese raised an eyebrow. “Sing?”

Carol felt herself grow warm, everywhere, and had to remind herself to breathe. “Your last letter.”  She watched as Therese glanced towards the living room, working her memory.  When  her eyes grew wide, Carol could not help a slight smirk as she watched a blush bloom from Therese’s chest up into her face.

“Ah, I see,” Therese smirked herself, and put a hand on each of Carol’s hips, pulling her flush against her.  “I think we begin here,” she declared, and Carol closed her eyes and smiled as Therese pulled her mouth towards her own.


	15. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> your comments on the last chapter were amazing. thank you! here's a little interlude while I figure out what happens next! follows pretty much immediately after the last chapter.

Carol felt as calm as a still pond deep in a lush green forest.  The racing agitation that was fire across her skin after reading Therese’s last letter had found its release in the exquisite pleasure of Therese’s hands, mouth, breath, skin loving every inch of her body and then, only then, when Carol had brought Therese to a stunning climax that had left them both gasping for breath.  Therese had fallen across Carol’s chest, where she now lay, wrapped in Carol’s arms, lazily drawing circles and long lines along the curve of Carol’s right hip, skin against skin, the long length of their bodies cooling with sweat.  Their breathing eased into a gentle mutual rhythm.

Carol smiled to herself and pressed a kiss to the top of Therese’s head.  As much as she enjoyed their lovemaking – and goodness she did enjoy it – she loved these moments afterwards, when the room was thick with scent, their bodies still felt unboundaried by skin, and their cries had banished any other unwelcome voices.

She kissed Therese’s head again, inhaling her scent deeply.  “I love you,” she murmured into her hair, “my dearest heart.”

“Mmmm,” responded Therese, with a soft wiggle of her torso and hips, and Carol squeezed her tighter, as if they could get any closer to each other than they already were. They both sighed, content, and Therese kissed Carol’s chest.

“Tomorrow…” Therese began, muffled into Carol’s breast.

“I think you mean today, darling,” Carol responded, and she felt Therese’s smile against her skin.

“Mmm, yes, silly.  What were you saying before, about going to the Madison place?”

Carol felt herself blush. “Oh…I think it will make more sense when you read my letters to you, but what I said was all my red clothes seem to be there, and I want to cook for you.”

“Oh red…I love you in red.”  Therese squeezed Carol’s hip, pressing in her nails briefly before running them down Carol’s thigh.

Carol shivered at Therese’s touch. “Yes, darling, I did gather that.”

“But the cooking…”

“Ah.  May it be a surprise, my love?”

Therese slipped her hand up Carol’s side, slowly.  “A surprise…I think I like that.”

Carol kissed the top of her head.  “Good.”

They lay there again, quiet, Therese tracing her fingers up, down. Carol shifted an arm from around Therese and drew her thumbnail up the younger woman’s spine, causing the slightest of delicate shudders.

“Dearest…”

“Mmm?”

Carol now mirrored Therese’s touch, up, down the curves along the ribs, belly, hip.  “Tell me what words you know now.”

Therese’s hand paused for a moment, then continued its course. “Words, what do you mean?”

“You seemed, in your letters…preoccupied with not knowing the right words for…this, what you felt, what I…what I made you feel.”

Therese thought for a moment.  “Mmm, words, yes, I remember…” she sighed deeply. “You left me speechless.”  She slid her hand up, around Carol’s breast, running her thumb across the nipple.  “You still do.”

“As you do me.”  Carol took Therese’s hand, kissed the palm, and placed it back over her breast, her own hand covering Therese’s.  “Still no words, then?” she asked with a teasing lilt in her voice.

Therese shifted so that she could see Carol, elbows on either side of her holding her up, and looked her in the eyes, suddenly quite awake. Carol swallowed and felt a renewed stirring deep in her belly at the brightness in Therese’s eyes.

“Oh, I’ve learned words,” Therese murmured, never taking her eyes off Carol.

“Have you?” Carol whispered.

Therese nodded slowly.  “Do you want to know?”

Carol felt suddenly breathless again, and licked her lips. “Please.”

Therese kissed Carol’s jaw. “Love.”

Under her left ear. “Warmth.”

Along her collarbone. “Tenderness.”

The top of her shoulder. “Desire.”

She ran her tongue along the notch where Carol’s collarbones met.  “Flavor.”

Down her breastbone. “Pleasure.”

Around her left breast, finishing with a nip and kiss to the nipple. “Lust.”

Carol realized she had stopped breathing, and inhaled quickly, running her hands up Therese’s sides, into her hair, then taking her face in her hands.  She searched the younger woman’s face, seeing each of the words shining there in her eyes.  “My dearest, sweetest heart,” she whispered, kissing Therese with a fervor both gentle and urgent.

“Carol…” Therese moaned between their mouths, and Carol felt her whole body light up.  “There are more,” the younger woman breathed, and Carol shuddered. With ease she rolled them til they were laying together side by side, and she hooked her top leg over Therese’s thigh.

“Write them.” 

“What?”

“The words.” Carol’s voice was low, like a rumble. “Write them. Everywhere. On my body. On my heart.” She took Therese’s hand and pressed it to her center. “Here.”  She smiled as Therese’s eyes grew wide in wonder, and she pulled her tightly into an embrace.


	16. Sleepy Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> basically this story has taken on a life of its own. this chapter is for g and gracie in particular.

The apartment was bright with sunlight when Carol opened her eyes, limbs intertwined with Therese’s, the white linen sheet winding in and around their curves.  She loved the way the late morning light made the turquoise-blue walls glow, and she smiled as she began to gently extricate herself from the tangles of arms and legs to check Therese’s wristwatch on the bedside table.  “Darling,” she whispered, kissing the younger woman’s forehead, “it’s after 10, should we get up?”

“Mmmnooo…” Therese muffled, pulling Carol back into an embrace.  Carol chuckled softly and allowed herself to be held.  For a long stretch of minutes they breathed, soft hands and lips welcoming the morning.  Finally Carol shifted, dropping a string of kisses along Therese’s shoulder, and made to rise from the bed, only to laugh when Therese clutched her around the waist with a whimpered “No, not yet…”

“Darling,” Carol smiled, “I do have to go to the bathroom.”

“Mmmfffno” was the only response as Therese buried her head in her pillow.

“My sweet sleepyhead.  Why don’t I make us some coffee?” Carol patted Therese’s leg as she headed to the bathroom.  When she came out Therese had shifted to sitting on the edge of the bed, slumped, eyes still closed.  “Definitely coffee,” she grinned, running her hand through Therese’s hair before heading to the kitchen.

Several minutes later, Carol poured coffee and cream into two mugs and called out to Therese.  “Darling, coffee’s ready.”  When there was no response she looked through the doorway into the bedroom, fully expecting to see that Therese had lain back down.  What she saw caused her to smile:  Therese standing next to the half-made bed, gazing at the red silk headscarf Carol had worn the night before now in her hands. Carol watched as Therese brought the scarf to her face and inhaled, deeply.  _My god_ , she thought, as a flutter settled in her thighs.  _Could you be any more beautiful?_

Carol had wondered what had happened to the scarf.  She had tried to keep it on, but after the third time it had shifted down over her eyes in the arching throes of Therese’s hands and mouth moving everywhere at once, she had tried to take it off.  “No,” Therese had pled, “no, please, I…I like it.” She had raised up over Carol, kneeling on either side of her hips.

The dark sheen of desire in Therese’s eyes made Carol swallow, hard.  “Darling, believe me,” she breathed, running her hands up and down Therese’s thighs, “I love that you like it.  But I cannot keep it on and keep both hands on you at the same time.  And both hands on you” – she lightly scratched her fingernails down the younger woman’s legs, and smiled to see the goosebumps puckering all across her body – “well, I think you can see the advantage.”

Therese could only nod and lick her lips.

“And,” Carol continued, “I want all my attention where it needs to be,” and she swirled her fingers over Therese’s belly, eliciting a groan from her as she rolled her head forward, eyes closed.  Carol felt quite pleased with herself and gently caressed up and down Therese’s thighs.  “So, what do we do?” she teased.

Therese opened her eyes, wide and gleaming, and regarded Carol.  “I love you in red.”

“Oh yes dearest," Carol responded, voice pitched low, "I know.”

Therese looked at her for a long moment, thinking, and then reached forward. She ran her fingers along the scarf’s edge, then lifted it gently from Carol’s head.  Without taking her eyes off Carol, she slowly untied the knot and gave the fabric a shake until it unfolded itself. “I think I have an answer,” she said, as she let the silk trail across Carol’s torso, “but until then, this will have to do.”  She dragged the silk across Carol’s chest, belly, smiling as muscles twitched and skin puckered, and then laid it flat across her body.  Still with eyes locked on her lover, she lowered herself until she was lying on Carol, the red silk between them. 

Many fierce kisses later, the scarf had found its way elsewhere, to be found again as Therese began to make the bed, and Carol felt her heart warm as she walked towards the bed, watching as Therese took another deep breath, red silk pressed to her face.

“Well, that’s another thing I will keep forever.”

Therese jumped, startled out of her reverie, then smiled sheepishly.  “It smells like you. So good.”  She began folding the scarf into a smaller square as Carol wrapped her arms around her from behind. 

“And what do I smell like?”

“Mmm, like your perfume, and shampoo, and just…you.  All of it mixed together. And…well. Bed.” 

“You are my treasure,” Carol whispered into Therese’s ear, kissing the lobe.  Therese tucked the scarf under her pillow and pulled the blankets up, then turned and kissed Carol.  They held each other until finally Therese sighed. 

“I could hold you forever.  But I seriously have to pee now.”

Carol laughed.  “Go on then, I’ll bring our coffee to the living room.”  They broke apart and headed in their respective directions.  “How about some breakfast? I could toast what’s left of the bread?”

“Sure.  Meet you on the couch? I do still want to read your letters.”

“Of course, darling.  I’ll meet you there.”


	17. The Letters, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've missed y'all. I was going to put all of "Therese reads Carol's letters" into one chapter, but decided y'all might like a post from me, and I wanted to post anyway, and this felt like a good chunk to share, so here is Part 1. :-)

Carol tidied up the coffee table, exchanging the empty whiskey glasses ( _When did we drink these? Oh yes, when we came up for air…_ ) for coffee mugs, setting out a plate of toast with butter, and making sure all the letters were in order.  She settled into a corner of the couch, feet tucked up under her, and picked up the jar of lotion and warmed it in her hands, slowly rolling it back and forth between her palms.  She smiled softly as she felt Therese’s hands slide over her shoulders, slipping along the satin of her robe, and she tilted her head up and back to kiss her beloved, running her own hand up the other woman’s neck and into her hair.  Carol loved the warmth between their skin where Therese’s hand came to rest on her chest, half tucked under the edge of her robe.

They both sighed, content, as they broke apart and Therese made her way to the other end of the couch.

“Awake now, darling?”

“Yes.  Thanks for the toast,” Therese answered, picking up and biting into a piece.

“Of course.” Carol held up the jar of lotion. “I thought I’d rub your feet while you read, if that’s ok.  Since they were hurting last night.”

“Oh god, you’re amazing. Yes, please!”  Therese shifted her feet into Carol’s lap, then picked up her mug and took a long drink of coffee.  “Mmm, you always know just how much cream I like.”

“Of course I do, darling,” Carol smiled.  She took the top of the jar and set it on the coffee table, then scooped a daub of lotion out with a finger and warmed it up in her hands.  She took Therese’s left foot and slowly began to work the lotion into the skin.  Her touch was gentle and slow, as she did not want to distract Therese from her reading.

Therese picked up the packet and settled it in her lap, unfolding the one on top.  Carol noticed she looked puzzled as her eyes skimmed the page.  “But…” Therese said, “this one’s mine.”

“Oh yes, so that you can refer to what you were saying if you need to.  Mine are there, all in order as I read yours and responded.”

“Oh I see.”  Therese skimmed to the end of the first letter, then the second, while Carol rubbed small circles into the arch of her foot.  “Oh god that feels good.  And I was so head over heels for you from the beginning,” she blushed.

“It’s beautiful,” Carol responded quietly.  She could not have been more happy.

Therese set her first two letters down on the table and began reading the first page from Carol.  She soon looked up.  “Carol, this is a shopping list.”

“Yes it is.” She tried not to grin.

“I don’t…wait.  Spinach, cream…Carol, is this what you’re going to cook for me?”

“Read the letter and find out.”

“Tease.”

Carol just laughed and squeezed Therese’s foot. Therese began to read.

 “You still have the note I sent with your gloves?” Therese asked, looking up again.

“Of course, darling.”

“I still have the delivery order slip for the train set.  Isn’t that funny?”

“I think it’s wonderful.” 

Therese smiled, shy, and kept reading. Carol worked more lotion into the tough skin of her heel. She could see Therese’s eyes reach the end of the letter, and how she swallowed, hard.  Carol smiled gently to herself.  Therese reached for the first page and read through the whole letter again.

“Oh Carol,” she sighed as she finished the letter, setting it carefully on the table.  “I don’t even know what to say.  Other than you’ll have to make a new shopping list because this one is staying with the letters.”

“A shopping list as a love letter?  I rather like that.”

Therese leaned back and closed her eyes, pressing her foot into Carol’s hand.  “If this is the first one how will I ever survive the rest?”

“Now you know how I felt all those hours without you last night!” Carol laughed.

“Fair enough!” Therese grinned.  “But your letter, seriously, it’s beautiful.  I love that you answered my questions.  Months later but it still feels so very present, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, dearest, I thought so too, last night.” Carol rubbed her thumb into the arch of Therese’s foot, a little harder than she had been, as if to emphasize her thought.

Therese skimmed her own letter, next in the stack.  “Oh god, did I really call Richard Wonder Bread?  No wonder you said that last night!”  She giggled.  “It was so true, though. And you…”

“Salt, butter, and cream, my heart. All yours,” Carol winked.

Therese blushed again and turned to Carol’s next letter. Again Carol followed Therese’s eyes down the page.  Soon Therese rubbed her free foot against Carol’s thigh, like a caress.  “Carol, you’re so good to me.”

“I do try, darling.”

“This part, what you say here, about wanting to go back and comfort me six months ago…that’s beautiful.”

“Oh yes.  Do you still feel tender about that? Wondering if you mattered to me.  Because you do. I hope you know that now.”  She looked into Therese’s gaze, seeing only kindness.

“I know I do.  But if you’re still aching to hold me, I am more than willing.”

“I’m not even done with one foot,” Carol said with a smirk, holding it up and kissing the big toe.

“Hmm.  That is a conundrum.”  Therese pretended to consider.  “All right, keep going, but hold me later.”

“Nothing would make me happier,” and Carol kissed the arch of her foot.

Therese squirmed and giggled.  “Listen…you keep that up…”

Carol laughed softly and rested her love’s foot back in her lap.  “I’ll behave.”

Therese grinned and looked back down at the letter. “You hated that house?  You never told me that.” 

“I never thought to.  But yes, I did.  Even moreso now knowing how it made you feel.”

“Oh Carol,” Therese sighed again.  “I love our life too. I’m so glad you like it here. Sometimes I wonder. It’s so small and simple compared to…well.”

“Oh darling, please, no.  I love this place.  I love it has your life lived in it.  I love the light and color – somehow you got the perfect windows.  I love our life here together.”

Therese smiled softly, and nodded.  “Good.  Good.”  She set the letter on the table with the rest and scanned the next one, her own.  “Oh, the day I visited you, oh my.  Oh I remember.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back.  “Oh my god that day.”

Carol gave her foot a soft squeeze.  “Your letter is exquisite.”

Therese was quiet, skimming her own letter and setting it aside. Carol watched her as she gazed off into space.  Finally she spoke. 


	18. The Letters, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a note to beloveds who might have hard time reading about abusive behavior. nothing too intense and only referred to, not depicted, but I'm sensitive about it so wanted to offer words of care. <3

Therese was quiet, skimming her own letter and slowly setting it aside. Carol watched her as she gazed off into space.  Finally the Therese spoke, her voice laced with wonder.  “I already knew I loved you.”

“Yes.” Carol let her hands still.

Therese shifted slightly. “Isn’t it funny that I knew I loved you because of something so complicated and hard that day?” she asked softly.

“It makes sense to me. Why do you say that, darling?” Carol didn’t know whether or not to be concerned by the question.

“Oh…” Therese shifted again, smiled.  “It’s not like the movies. All…happy and perfect and bells ringing and …I don’t know....”

“Well darling none of this is like the movies. But I much prefer it, don’t you?”  Carol gave Therese’s foot a gentle caress with her thumb.

“Oh yes!” Now Therese smiled more fully. “It’s just…oh I don’t know, that day was so full of…everything…with you…so of course I would discover I love you.” She paused.  “I’m not making any sense.  And then I didn’t even tell you until spring!”

Carol cocked her head.  “You told me when you were ready to. Maybe you needed to know I did too, first.”

“Yes, I guess that’s right.”  Therese nodded slowly.  “Funny how remembering can make you feel all the same things again.”

“Yes, I noticed that last night. You’ll see that in my next letter I think.”

Therese’s eyes roamed around the room. “Like, right now, even though we’re here, we’re fine, and yet I still feel…joy, and anguish…and such an ache for you, for that day, I still feel like want to run to you.” Her gaze finally settled on Carol. “I still want to yell at you for hanging up.”  Her voice was serious, but her eyes twinkled in a way that made Carol chuckle lightly.

“Well, you should read my letter then.” She gave Therese’s foot a gentle squeeze.  “And I’m right here, and yes, we’re fine, and I completely understand.” She took a breath. “Your letter made me cry, after all.”

“It did?”

“Yes. So many feelings as I remembered.” She pointed at the letter in Therese’s hand with her chin.  “Read it.”

Therese smiled at her tenderly.  “I love you.”

“And I you.”

Carol switched to Therese’s right food and began to rub it softly with the cream. As she watched Therese’s face turn serious – the way her brow furrowed ever so slightly – she began to feel a nervousness in her chest, as though her heart were racing though she knew it was not.  She knew Therese had come to the part where Carol disclosed her shame – _what will she think?_ – and she closed her eyes, lowering her head.

“Carol?” Therese’s voice was a gentle as Carol could ever remember it being, and she opened her eyes, though did not look up.

“Hey” – Therese moved her foot in Carol’s still hands to get her attention – “hey, Carol, I’m here, look at me?”

Carol took a shallow breath and looked up. Therese leaned forward and put a hand on her knee.  _Such kindness_ , Carol thought, _such kindness in her face_ , and she put a balled up fist to her heart and pressed hard as if to calm an ache.

“Carol, it’ll be ok.  We’ll talk, it’ll be ok.  I promise. I love you.”  Therese shifted even more forward. “Come here.” Carol leaned in and Therese kissed her softly. “Ok?”

Carol took another breath, shaky, and nodded.  “Ok.”

They settled back into their spots on the sofa and Carol began to rub Therese’s foot again, one eye on Therese’s face as she read.  _No need to be nervous,_ she reminded herself, _she already knows, she already knew, that night, she already knew, and she’s still here.  Just breathe for Christ’s sake, just breathe._

Therese turned back to the first page and read through the whole letter again. Carol found endearing the little twitches of the eyebrows, the little quirk of the mouth as Therese unconsciously smiled as she read.  _Oh yes, there were good things in my letter too.  Good things. Happy things._  

Finally Therese set down the pages and reached out both hands to Carol, who without a word took them in hers, shifting up and turning so that she ended lying on her back on Therese’s chest, wrapped in her arms.  They were quiet for several breaths, their heads close together.

After several moments Therese kissed the top of Carol’s head.  “You know, you are such a flirt,” she said quietly, seriously, and it was such an unexpected statement that Carol laughed out loud.  “Well it’s true!  You are.”  Now Therese laughed and squeezed Carol tighter, and Carol’s laughter subsided into a grin.  Her anxiety dispelled, she reached up and tugged at Therese’s earlobe. 

“Why Miss Belivet, whyever would you say such a thing?”

“You know damn well why, Miss “were-those-pictures-of-me-you-were-taking.”

They both laughed again, and eased back into a gentle quiet.  Therese stroked Carol’s arm with her thumb.  “You want to talk about it?” she finally asked delicately.

Carol swallowed, nodded briefly, and wondered how to start.

“You don’t want to yell at me? For hanging up?” she finally said.

“Absolutely not.”  Therese kissed the side of her head.  “It’s ok if you don’t want to right now.”

“No, no…I just…” Carol fumbled for words.

“Carol,” Therese hugged her to her, “there’s no pressure.  Take your time. I’m here.”

The older woman nodded, then rested her head back on Therese’s shoulder.

“I…well you know what you saw, how he just came into the house…loud…drunk, then drunker…”  Carol swallowed again, and sighed.  “I had always thought I was a strong person, a strong woman, smart…I don’t know how it happened, that I found myself apologizing to a man who made my life a misery. How my life became…that… constricted….I don’t know.  He called me cruel, that night, I don’t know if you heard that” –

“No, I didn’t. Carol, I’m so sorry.”

“What did you see?”

Therese was silent for a moment.  “Carol…”

“You can tell me, darling, it’s ok. You knew, in your letter it’s clear you could tell.  I just wondered…”

Therese gently tightened her arms around Carol.  “Well, it was the way your whole body changed when he walked in, like your shoulders caved in, when every time I had seen you so far you held yourself so proud. How you felt like you had to put your shoes on in your own house. How distant your eyes got.  How you flinched when he yelled.” She paused.  “And…I saw how he grabbed you and shoved you outside, yelled at you again.  But also just the fact that he felt like he could come in unannounced, demand things, take your child. It felt…it wasn’t right, Carol.”

“No.” Carol’s voice was small.  “And then he called me cruel. After all that. Just because I spoke. He told me to get in the car or else, and I said, ‘then what, it’s over?’” She scoffed.  “We were already so over, it was just a statement of fact, and then he called _me_ cruel.”  She took a shaky breath.  “But then I almost…I almost tried to apologize. Like I had done something wrong, you know? I felt like I had done something wrong. Like I was the wrong one.”

Carol knew Therese was listening by the way she nodded against her head so that Carol could feel it, the attentiveness in the way, without a word, her hand was caressing the spot on her arm where the scar was. Memories of porcelain shards, of blood, of other nights of Harge’s rages shot through her.

“How did that happen,” she asked herself, very still, “that I ended up feeling like the wrong one?”

“You did nothing wrong, Carol.” Therese’s voice was very gentle in her ear.  “He was violent, and a drunk, and I’m guessing over many years.” Carol nodded. “That had to take a toll on you.”

Carol shook her head. “But I should have been stronger. Oh god, I hated, _hated_ you seeing me like that. I felt so ashamed, what must you have thought of me?”

She felt Therese kiss her cheek. “Carol, I didn’t think anything of you. I hurt for you. I thought he was a horrible man who did not deserve you. That you were right to get away from him.  People talk about divorce like it’s some horrible failure, especially for women, but that was no life, Carol, you did the right thing. You deserve to live, to thrive.  Not to be mistreated and then blamed for it.”

Carol nuzzled her head back into Therese’s shoulder but did not respond. She pressed again at her heart, but the tears came anyway. _Goddammit, no. No._   She shook in Therese’s arms.

“Carol, Carol,” Therese whispered, and shifted as Carol curled up on her side, still leaned against Therese, weeping into her chest, a fistful of Therese’s robe crunched up in her fist.  “Carol, you’re safe now. You’re safe.” She gently rocked her in her arms. 

Carol felt a wave of anger and shame claw at the back of her throat. “I…I hurt you… goddammit.”

“Carol, no,” Therese’s voice was still quiet, but now firm as steel. “You will not blame yourself for what he did. I don’t. Ok?  You’re safe, you’re here with me, you’re safe now.” Therese kept rocking her, back and forth.

“I never…I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know. We’re here now, you’re safe.”

Carol gulped for air as memories swirled inside her head. “He made me doubt. Maybe I was the cruel one after all. If I had just been…better…a better wife…he wouldn’t have thrown the flowers at me.”

“Carol…”

“ _Goddammit_ ,” Carol spit with force.  “Therese” – there was a plea in her voice.

“I’m here, right here.”  Therese gripped Carol’s hand.  “Right here, Carol.”

“Therese” –

“Right here.”

Carol shook in Therese’s arms and tried to catch her breath, Therese’s hand in hers the lifeline it had always been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the incident with Harge throwing the flowers and causing the scar is told briefly in my story "Holding Hands."


	19. The Letters, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> #FangirlingIsResistance

Carol’s breathing had finally calmed, but she still felt disoriented, raw, and pressed Therese’s hand into her chest with a deep sigh.

“You ok?” Therese said with a kiss to Carol’s cheek.

“Oh…I will be.  I’m sorry, I didn’t expect” –

“Carol, I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you just get over.  Remembering would be upsetting, there is nothing for you to apologize for.”

“You are so dear to me,” Carol murmured, rubbing her head into Therese’s chest, smiling when she felt the younger woman’s arms tighten around her.  “I…I wanted to be strong for you.  That day I wanted everything to be perfect for you. Even me. I was so angry at Harge for ruining everything, so angry at myself for letting that happen.”

“Carol, you didn’t let it happen. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m trying to believe that…”

“And you don’t have to be perfect for me. Remember, I realized I was in love with you because you weren’t perfect.”

Carol sighed again.  “Yes, I’m trying to believe that, too…”

“Just you, Carol, just as you are.”

Carol shifted slightly. “I think that’s what you said in one of your letters.”

“Mmhmm, well it’s still true.” Therese ran a hand up Carol’s arm. “You know, there was a question you didn’t answer, from my letter.”

“Oh?”

“Let me see.” Therese reached for the stack of letters and Carol swung her legs around to sit up, still keeping quite close to Therese and her free hand clasped in hers.

“Here,” Therese put a finger to the paper. “Actually it’s several questions. ‘ _What I would ask you, Carol, is do you know how magnificent you are? Do you know that you deserve to be happy? To be treated with care? I would ask you, what does your heart most long for? Carol, what do you want for your life?  I would ask you, would you let me help? What can I do?_ ’”

The corner of Carol’s mouth twitched, as she knew she was about to avoid the real question.  “Well, you helped just by being there, I’ve told you that.”

“Yes…and the other questions?” Therese asked gently.

Carol squirmed, shy.  “I…well…” she looked down at Therese’s hand in hers, sliding her thumb across her knuckles. “If you had asked me then…well I guess you did, I just didn’t know you had…well I would have said, what I wanted most” – she shrugged her shoulders as if releasing a burden – “that day, I just wanted to be _free_.”

“Free,” Therese affirmed.

“Yes. Free from him. Free to be happy. Free to…well, to pursue you…just…god, just be _free_.”

Therese just nodded, and put her other hand in Carol’s.

“Do you know the lawyers did not care how he treated me? Fred was great but all the focus was on my… _pattern_ of behavior. God. Not his.  Drunk, violent, spying on me for Christ’s sake.”  She shook her head. “Fucking Harge.”

“That’s awful.”  Therese rubbed a thumb across the back of Carol’s hand.  “But you know, you did get free, Carol. I don’t know why you think you weren’t strong, you got out.”

Carol smiled slowly. “Well yes, yes I did.  And now look, here we are.”  The two women squeezed hands.

“Yes,” Therese agreed, dimples showing, “yes we are.”

Carol cocked an eyebrow at her. “You sure you don’t want to yell at me?” she grinned.

Therese playfully nudged Carol with her shoulder.  “No, I don’t! Even if we do know now that we can survive it.” They both laughed.  “Believe me when I tell you.  All your confessions, Carol…” Therese thought for a moment, glancing at the letter still in her lap then looking back at Carol.  “You do realize that flirting with me is not something you have to apologize for, right?”

Carol just looked puzzled.  “Did I say that?”

“Mmhmm.  Well, ‘confessed’ it…as if you had done something wrong and I just want to be clear you weren’t…wrong.  Apologize for mistakes, of course, but not for being human. I just want you to know that.”  Therese squeezed Carol’s hands again.  “You said, before, that Harge made you feel like you were the wrong one.  I never want you to feel that way with me. Ok?”

Carol raised a hand and cupped Therese’s face, caressing her across the cheekbone.  “My angel,” she sighed.  After a moment she dropped her hand back into her lap to hold Therese’s hands again.  “I suppose it’s like you said, it’s not something one just gets over.  But with time, perhaps. With you.” She smiled and leaned over to kiss Therese’s cheek. 

“With time. Yes.”  Therese smiled at the kiss.  “I suppose it’s like how I feel about my mother. You don’t just get over that either.”

“No, darling, you don’t.” Carol tucked a strand of hair behind Therese’s ear. “Time, and each other. Even in just these few months I already feel like a different person.”

“Me too,” Therese said softly, and they held hands and gazed at each other quietly for a moment. 

“How did I get so lucky,” Carol finally murmured, and kissed Therese as tenderly as she knew.  The two women wrapped their arms around each other and embraced, tight, and Therese returned the kiss, sweet, soft, long, then buried her face in Carol’s neck, inhaling deeply.

“God, how do you always smell so good?”

Carol chuckled and nibbled at Therese’s ear.  “Darling, I haven’t even bathed today.”

“Mmm, doesn’t matter,” Therese’s voice was muffled under Carol’s hair, “still so good. So you.”

They rocked there for a moment, then Carol pulled back and pressed her forehead to Therese’s. For a moment they were still, only breathing, eyes closed.  “What are you thinking?” Therese finally asked.

Carol blinked a glance at Therese.  “Oh, I was thinking…remembering…you’re going to laugh, but I was remembering our fight, on Thursday.”

“Oh? Why?”

“Oh” – Carol drew a breath – “I…I will never leave you, I will never do that again, you know that.”

Therese pulled back slightly, looking fully into Carol’s face.  “I know that, I do.”

“Please…don’t worry, I just…”

“What, Carol?” 

Therese’s voice was gentle but Carol saw the concern in the other woman’s eyes.  “It’s…what we were just saying about…things taking time, you know? I’m not going anywhere, I may just…not get it right, at first, how to talk to you when something is hard.  That’s all.  I know I promised you, I” – she sighed – “old habits, I suppose? Don’t give up on me, ok?”

“Oh Carol.”  Therese’s gaze had softened into relief and care as Carol spoke.  “That makes sense. I suppose it would be the same for me, being afraid of being left, of being small.  Time, it’ll take time.  As long as we’re both learning, healing, don’t you think?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Carol smiled and pulled Therese back into an embrace.  “Oh, I’m glad I made sense.”

She felt Therese’s lips on her neck, her breath warm on her skin as she whispered. “Of course, Carol. You make sense and I love you.” 

“Oh darling, I love you too.” She had tilted her head to the side to give Therese more of her neck, and felt herself growing warm.  She slid a hand up the satin covering Therese’s thigh.  “Dearest…”

“Mmm?”

“Shall we spend the day here?”

“Mmmyes…” 

Carol laughed.  “You’re insatiable.”  She felt a hand slip under her pajama top and slide up her ribcage, tantalizingly close, but not quite close enough, to her breast.

“And you’re not?”

Carol could feel Therese’s grin in the lips on her collarbone.  “Fair enough,” she murmured, dipping forward and leaning to assure her breast found Therese’s hand.  She was rewarded with a nip to her neck and the caress of Therese’s thumb across her nipple, both of which made her inhale sharply and press her fingernails into Therese’s back.  “Listen…”

“You’re magnificent…”

Carol took Therese’s face in her hands and kissed her, biting and pulling at her lower lip.  “My dearest, darling heart,” she mumbled between kisses, trying not to grin, “I am in my pajamas, I have not bathed, and I am utterly disheveled thanks to our night’s…adventures.”

Therese just threw her head back and laughed, eyes sparkling and dimples deep.  “First of all,” she smirked, “um, I love you like this, just like this,” and she kissed Carol back.  “And second of all, who says that your magnificence has only to do with how beautiful you are?” Now she held Carol’s gaze.  “I’ve always seen more than that, remember?” She pointed with her chin towards the stack of letters.

Carol traced Therese’s mouth with her fingers.  “I see,” she said softly, kissing Therese gently. “Nevertheless” – she drew back and stretched her arms into the air – “I would still like to cook you supper, and I do indeed want to shower, so” – she pecked a kiss to Therese’s forehead and stood up – “why don’t you read that last letter or so of mine while I do that?”

“Spoilsport,” Therese teased, squeezing Carol’s hand while she stood.  “Go on, then.”

Carol smiled as Therese reached again for the stack of letters as she headed for the bathroom.  As she slowly stripped away the layers of satin she marveled at the last 48 hours.  _We fought, and look where we are now. I feel like we’ve lived a lifetime since that morning. How could I be this happy?_ She turned on the water and waited for it to warm up.  _I never thought I could be this happy. This loved._ She checked the water temperature and stepped under the shower head, water hot, steaming.

She took her time washing her hair, luxuriating in the hot water as it rushed over her head and down her body, reflecting the contentment she felt.  Eventually she picked up the soap and began lathering up her limbs, torso. Stepping back under the water, she turned and rinsed, slowly, still too content to want to hurry. 

Eyes closed under the rushing water, she jumped when she felt Therese’s hands slide around her waist and pull her close.  “Of all the nerve,” she gasped, a chuckle in her voice showing she was not at all perturbed, and turned around into Therese’s arms. “Where did you come from?” she smirked, then caught her breath at the look in Therese’s eyes, large and wanting.  “What, darling?”

“Bare,” Therese husked and pressed her against the wall, the water flowing down between them.  “Just like this, bare,” she continued, her eyes running over Carol’s body and back to her eyes.  “Ask me again.”

“Ask you” – Carol panted.

“I want to see you swoon.” She ran a hand up Carol’s thigh, over her hip, across her belly, and let it come to rest, casually, as if totally by accident, between her thighs. She did not take her eyes off Carol’s. “Ask me again.”

Carol swallowed, hard.  “Would you?”

Carol thought her heart would pound out of her chest watching Therese’s face become exultant, green eyes radiant and piercing into her own.

“Yes, yes I would.”

And Carol swooned.


	20. PS: Christmas In July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that never wanted to end, for the story that never wanted to end. Nevertheless, beloveds, we have reached the end - of this particular story, anyway. I'm sure there will be more to come. Thank you, immensely, for coming along and making the writing of this such a joy for me. Enjoy, it's pure domestic bliss fluffiness! And seriously, the longest chapter ever. :-)

  
“Gentle, gentle…that’s it, just slide it in, slowly…” Carol kissed the side of Therese’s head.

“Don’t distract me,” Therese muttered, eyes focused.

Carol chuckled.  “Relax, darling. All right, now the other, just like that, slow, gentle…ah, yes, there you go.”

Therese smiled but did not take her eyes off the pot on the stove, where two eggs were now poaching in the steaming water.  “Now what?”

“We wait, 2, maybe 3 minutes at the most.  Slotted spoon at the ready, that makes all the difference.”  Carol looked slyly at Therese.  “Long enough for a kiss, come here.”

“But” –

Carol had already caught up Therese’s mouth in her own.  It was a wonder they had gotten any cooking done at all, stopping every five minutes to kiss again. Carol grinned and pulled at Therese’s lower lip with her own. She felt Therese’s distraction and opened her eyes to see her trying to check the eggs.  “Darling, if you keep watching them they’ll feel it, and then we’ll have anxious eggs rather than poached ones.”

Therese giggled.  “That’s not a real thing. Anxious eggs.  Has it been 2 minutes yet?”

“No, come here, 30 more seconds.” Carol gently pulled Therese’s face back toward her and kissed her again, tongue running along teeth.

“Are you sure this is part of the recipe?”

Carol looked at Therese through her eyelashes, her best smoldering look, and lowered her voice. “Well it is now.”

They both laughed and pulled apart, and Therese checked the eggs again.  “Now?” 

Carol looked and nodded.  “Let me grab one of the plates.”  She pulled one of the plates of creamed spinach out of the oven where it was keeping warm and held it up for Therese to place the two poached eggs on top.  “Easy does it…perfect!”

Therese beamed, and Carol carried the plate into the dining room, to place on the immaculately set table.  “Go ahead with the next two, darling, I’ll be right there.”  She gazed down at the table with a warm smile, making the slightest of adjustments to a knife, a wine glass, assuring that everything was just so.  Between the two place settings lay their stack of letters, both sets, tied together with the original ribbon, and a gift box, wrapped in red. 

Carol traced the neckline of her blouse, the same she had worn her first visit to Therese’s apartment. Red seemed certainly the theme of the day.

After a shower that was no less delightful for being unexpectedly long, they had finally tumbled out of Therese’s apartment mid-afternoon.  Carol had re-written the shopping list – “the original stays with the letters,” Therese had insisted – and then, trying to sound nonchalant, asked, “Darling, I think I want to swing by Bloomingdale’s for something before going to the market, do you mind very much?”

An indecipherable look had crossed Therese’s face, but she said only, “Of course, Carol. Actually I need something there as well, so that works fine.”

At Bloomingdale’s they had gone their separate ways in the store, “just to save time, I want to get back to the Madison place with you,” Carol had insisted, though what she really had wanted was to surprise Therese, who had no problem going off on her own, to Carol’s own curiosity.  Meeting back up in the lobby, neither divulged anything about their purchases, and Carol grinned to herself. _Well, we’re both up to something then_.

The stop at the market didn’t take long, as creamed spinach is a deceptively simple dish. They did make an extra stop at Carol’s favorite cheese shop for a wedge of parmigiano – “My secret ingredient” – she whispered to Therese while they waited at the counter.

Finally at the Madison place, they set down their bags in the kitchen, and both headed to the bedroom.

“Wait,” Therese said, turning to look at Carol, “you’re going there too?”

They both stopped, and Carol’s eyes flashed with amusement. _Something is definitely up_.  “Well yes, darling, I want to change clothes.”

“What’s wrong with what you have on?”

Carol cocked an eyebrow and pursed her lips.  Leaning towards Therese ever so slightly, but enough for emphasis, she husked, “Well, it’s not _red_ , don’t you see, dearest?” And with that she sauntered towards the bedroom, but not before seeing Therese turn six shades of red herself.

“Um…” Therese stammered after her.  “That’s fine, that’s…fine.  I’ll put things away in the kitchen.”

Carol laughed, closing the door behind her.  She first took a package out of the Bloomingdale’s bag and tucked it behind her clothes on her side of the closet.  _For…later_ , she smiled.  Sorting through hangers, she found what she was looking for and began to change into the brown checked skirt and the red blouse with the ribboned neckline. She left her feet bare.  Checking herself in the mirror, she touched up her lipstick and ran her fingers through her hair.  _Good.  Good_.

Therese must have heard her coming down the hall because she called out, “I found these red napkins in your linen cabinet, they’re kind of Christmas-y on the edge but that doesn’t matter, does it?”

Carol stepped into the dining room and leaned against the doorway. “No, not at all. In fact, Christmas feels just right.”  She watched as Therese registered her there, how her eyes grew wide and her hands went still, how she slowly straightened up but otherwise did not move from the spot where she stood.  “You…you still have it?” She spoke as if her mouth had gone dry.

“Of course, darling, and I am never getting rid of it, either.”

“Carol…” Therese breathed.

Carol just stood there, not taking her eyes off Therese. She suddenly felt a wave of nerves, just as she had when Therese had come home the night before.  “Well, come here, silly,” she finally said, waving a hand at her. 

Therese blinked as if out of a dream, and reached Carol in quick steps.  “Oh god.  How did you…” She slowly ran her fingers over the neckline, in between the cuts of cloth.  “Oh Carol, I may die right here.”

“Well, that makes both of us then,” Carol whispered as she felt a shiver at the feel of Therese’s fingers on her skin.

“Carol…” Therese murmured, tracing her fingers back and forth as if mesmerized.

“Mmm?”

“Are we ever going to get to supper?”

Carol chuckled.  “I’m beginning to wonder that myself.”  She kissed the other woman’s forehead.  “Come on, let me teach you how to make creamed spinach.  This won’t come off ‘til you’re good and ready.”  Therese smiled shyly and took Carol’s hand as they headed to the kitchen.

Suddenly Therese stopped.  “Oh! I forgot…”

“What’s that?”

“Oh um…my turn in the bedroom.”  She kissed Carol’s cheek quickly and turned to go back down the hall.

“All right, why don’t I finish setting the table, and get everything ready?”

“Sounds good!  I won’t be long.”

Carol smiled softly to herself as she checked the table.  The napkins were a rich red jacquard silk with a holly-leaf pattern. Carol thought they were perfect, and looked stunning against the bare mahogany of the table.  Therese had already set out plates, so Carol arranged the napkins to the left, and gathered up silverware from the chest on the sideboard.  Wine and water glasses completed the settings.  _The box_ , she thought, looking over the table.  “Are you almost done in there, darling?” she called out.

“Almost! Don’t come in!”

“All right, all right,” Carol laughed.  She headed into the kitchen and started setting out ingredients and the necessary pots and pans.  _Always full of surprises, my girl_ , she hummed to herself as she set wrapped the loaves of bread in towels to keep them warm. They had decided there was not enough time at that point to cook rolls from scratch, and had opted for fresh bread just out of the oven at the corner bakery, though Carol had felt that was rather cheating.

“No,” Therese had said, “it just means there’s more time for…other things.”  Carol had blushed, but leaned into Therese in the store aisle and whispered in her ear, “Insatiable.”  Carol grinned as she saw Therese’s dimples deepen, and insisted on buying two loaves.  “You still get to have as much as you can eat. You know I love to spoil you.” She had also added a whole extra pound of pure butter to go along with it.

At the sound of Therese’s footsteps in the kitchen Carol turned, surprised to see that Therese was still in the same clothes. _What have you been up to?_ “Darling, I forgot something in the bedroom, is it safe now?”

“Oh! Um…perhaps I can get it for you?”

Carol was amused.  _Fine, I will play along._   “Well of course, it’s just in the Bloomingdale’s bag on my side of the bed.”

Therese went, and returned carrying the gift-wrapped box.  “What’s this?”

“Well now, you’ll have to wait and find out, won’t you? Could you set it on the table? Along with our letters, you have them don’t you? I feel like I want to have them close.”

At last they had settled in to cook, chopping the spinach, onion, and garlic together.  As the onions and garlic sautéed in oil and much butter, Therese moaned at the smell.  “Oh my god, that is amazing already.  I could eat just that.”

Carol dipped a finger in the butter dish, sprinkled the dab of butter with salt, and held it out to Therese. “How about this?” she teased. The way Therese took it on her tongue made Carol flush with heat. 

“Delicious,” Therese said, and Carol thought she would faint at the look in Therese’s eyes. Instead she poured herself a glass of water and drank it all in three swallows.  She noticed the small smirk around Therese’s mouth: the woman knew just what she was doing to her.

Carol took a deep breath, shook her head, then checked the sauté.  “Ready with the spinach?” Therese picked up the bowl and brought it over.  “Add it in bunches, and stir it up every once in a while.  I’ll grate the nutmeg.”  She poured the heavy cream into a measuring cup and grated the nutmeg into it.

“It smells like Christmas,” Therese said, stirring.  “Now I know that school had no idea how to cook, this is a feast for the senses already and we aren’t even done!”

The spinach cooked down and they added the cream, Therese still stirring.  Carol put one of the loaves of bread into the oven to warm. “Not long now, darling.”  When the spinach was thick and creamy, Therese scooped the rich green dish onto  their plates while Carol held them.  “And now the secret ingredient!”  Carol grated a generous amount of parmigiano over each plate, then set them in the oven to keep warm.  “And now the eggs.”

“I’m nervous about the eggs,” Therese confessed.

Carol kissed her behind her ear.  “Don’t be, darling, it’s actually not that difficult.”

  
~ ~ ~

  
Carol smiled to herself, checking the table one last time. _A perfect day. Such a perfect day._

A noise came from the kitchen that sounded like a growl. “Dammit, I broke one!” Therese fussed.

Carol headed back into the kitchen. “It’s fine, darling, just start over.”

“Oh but I thought I had the hang of it.  You said it wasn’t hard.”

“Well it’s not, but it does happen to the best of us,” Carol responded, laying her hands on Therese’s shoulders. “Just try again.”

Therese cracked another egg and gently slid it into the water. “Ah, there. Good. Can you grab the other plate, this first one is done I think.”  Carol marveled at how they moved together in the kitchen, seamless, as if they had been doing this dance for years.

Finally they sat at the table, plates of creamed spinach with poached eggs in front of them, a loaf of bread on a plate between them, wine glasses full.  Carol raised her glass to Therese.  “Bon apetit, dearest,” and they toasted glasses, took a sip of the wine, and smiled at each other.

Therese picked up her fork and broke the yolks, watching mesmerized as the golden yellow ran out over the dark green.  “This is beautiful, these colors.”

“Taste it, darling.”

Therese scooped up a forkful and put it in her mouth as Carol waited, watchful.  Therese rolled her eyes back.  “Mmm, oh my god Carol.  Carol…” She swallowed and took another bite.  “This…how can anything be this good?”

Carol beamed. “I’m so glad you like it, I really am.”

“Like it?” Therese was incredulous. “I more than like it. I want to eat this every day. With you. It’s amazing. Even better than the restaurant.”

“That’s my secret ingredient,” Carol winked.

They ate with joyful gusto, Therese slathering slice after slice of bread with butter.  The sheen of butter on Therese’s lips matched the sheen of pleasure in her eyes, Carol thought. Watching Therese eat with such delight filled Carol with immense happiness, and a growing desire that hummed under her skin and between her thighs.

Finally Therese picked up the last curved end of bread and drug it across her place to sop up all the leftover cream and yolk.  Carol just watched, entranced, until Therese caught her eye.  “What”? she grinned and bit into the bread, then shyly covered her mouth with her fingers.

“Nothing at all. I just love seeing you happy, my love.”  Carol settled back in her chair with her wine glass.  “You can have my plate too, if you like.”

Therese didn’t hesitate, and set Carol’s plate on top of her now clean one.  “You are so good to me,” she said, swiping the last bit of bread across Carol’s plate and popping it in her mouth.  “Carol,” she said, swallowing, “I know I said the restaurant version was you, was my life after you, but this” – she sighed – “this, Carol, I don’t even know, this is beyond what I thought I could ever know.”

Carol regarded her, curious. “The dish, darling?”

“The dish, you, my life, our life…all of it. All of it, Carol.”

Carol leaned forward and reached for Therese’s hand, squeezing it tightly.  “Me too, darling, me too.”

They gazed at each other for a moment, until Therese’s eyes started to lean towards the wrapped gift next to them.  “So,” she said, pointing with her chin, “what’s this then?”

Chuckling, Carol leaned back again, ran a hand through her hair, and took a sip of her wine.  “Go ahead then.”

Therese’s eyes twinkled as she picked up the gift.  “It really is like Christmas,” she said, beginning to carefully peel off the wrapping.

“Well, darling, your last letter does leave us at Christmas Eve, so wouldn’t you say some Christmas is appropriate?”

“Oh, I’m not complaining at all…Oh Carol, it’s beautiful!” Therese held up a deep red lacquered box with a hinged lid and a golden metal sliding latch.  “Is this…”

Carol nodded.  “It’s for our letters. I spotted in Bloomingdale’s while on my way…elsewhere and thought it perfect.  Our letters should have a beautiful home.”

“Oh Carol, thank you.” The green in Therese’s eyes glowed as she opened the box and with a gentle reverence placed the letters inside the box.  “It’s perfect, it really is.”

“This goes in there too.” Carol pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket and held it up between her fingers.

“That’s not” – Therese uttered in awe.

“Yes, the note you sent with my gloves. ‘Employee 645A.’  I like ‘Therese Belivet’ much, much better,” she smiled, set the note on top of the letters.

“Oh Carol,” Therese sounded faint.  “I will get the delivery slip and add it too.”

Again they fell into delicious, contented silence.  Therese shifted in her chair, and tilted her head. “Carol,” she asked shyly, “would you…”

“Anything, darling.”

“Would you dance with me?”

“Nothing would make me happier,” she replied, rising in a smooth motion. “Let’s leave these, she said with a wave towards the dishes.  “Come.” She reached out for Therese’s hand and led them to the living room, mostly dark but still holding the hint of glow from the sunset.

Carol was not at all surprised that Therese chose Billie Holiday.  _Somehow we are reclaiming those memories_ , she thought as Therese swayed close, pulling Carol to her with an arm around her waist. _This is how it should have been, could have been, and is now, is now, oh god is now_ – and Carol buried her face in Therese’s hair, momentarily overcome by a strange mix of emotion for which she had no words.

“I love you,” Therese whispered into her ear, and lay her head on Carol’s shoulder, one arm around her, the other hand tracing through the ribboned neckline of Carol’s blouse, slow, generous.

“Oh god, I love you, I love you too,” Carol murmured, quivering at Therese’s touch and kissing her forehead, her arms wrapped around her. _Never, ever getting rid of this blouse_ , she sighed to herself.

They swayed together, unhurried, tender, even through some of the faster-paced songs. As the music continued, Carol ran a hand up Therese’s back, and down, and along the slight curve of her hip. Unable to resist, she slid her hand under Therese’s blouse, losing her breath at the feel of her warm skin that seemed to almost vibrate. Carol felt almost bereft when Therese pulled away to flip the record over, though she never actually let go of her, and spun right back into the same space against Carol’s body, tight, once the task was complete.

Immediately Carol slid her hand back under Therese’s blouse, caressing every muscle, and the younger woman continued her apparently endless fascination with Carol’s neckline. Carol leaned in and kissed her, eyes, cheeks, lips at last, a gentle offering at first, that grew from simple lips to a surrendered seeking of tongues, lavish, fierce, until Carol felt Therese’s nails press through the neckline cuts where her collarbones met and she moaned, pulling Therese tighter with arms and teeth both.

“Carol…” Therese mumbled into her mouth, and Carol kept kissing her, now both hands running up the skin of her back, down her sides, sliding just beneath the waist of her skirt.

“Carol…god” Therese bit at the tendon of Carol’s neck, then pressed her forehead hard into Carol’s chest, breathing hard.

Catching her own breath, Carol gradually became aware of the scratchy bump of the record needle.  “Darling,” she whispered, “the music…”

“Carol…” Therese sighed.

“Darling…” Carol had no idea when the music had ended; she noticed they still swayed as if it were still playing, though the only sound was of their breath, and their hearts.

Therese shook her head, still pressed forehead to collarbone.  “I’m conflicted,” she breathed.

“Whatever about, my love?”

Therese took a shaky breath. “I don’t know whether I want to take this blouse...everything…off you right this second, or never move from this spot ever again, never let you go.” She traced again the skin beneath the ribboned neckline and shivered in Carol’s arms.

“Oh darling.” Carol felt her knees go instantly weak and clung to Therese.  “I assure you, I understand completely” – she kissed the top of the younger woman’s head – “and whatever choice you make will certainly be the right one.”

Therese took several deep breaths, fingers still at Carol’s neckline. _I will come undone, utterly, if you keep breathing like this and touching me this way_ , Carol thought _, and you won’t need to undress me at all._

“Carol…where’s your coat?”

Carol blinked, and again.  Then she grinned and shifted upright.  “Wait for me right here.”

She turned to head to the hall closet, but Therese grabbed her hand.  “No. Meet me in the bedroom.”  The look Therese gave her shimmered with desirous joy, and Carol nodded.

When Carol walked in the bedroom wearing the red wool coat, Therese’s eyes went wide, a deepening luster of green as she took a step back.  “Yes,” she whispered. “…I…I don’t even…”

Carol smiled at her, amused and delighted.  “Darling, you can touch me, you know.”

Therese just nodded, slowly, biting her lip, and moved forward until she could reach out and touch Carol, running her hands over her shoulders and down the front of the coat, back up again and down her arms, back up again and then, finally, embracing her and running her hands up and down her back.  “Oh god…I never thought…”

“All yours, dearest,” Carol whispered in her ear.

“It still has the broach,” Therese murmured, fingering the gold edges.  Therese put her hands under the shoulders of the coat and pushed back, sliding the coat off Carol and gathering it up in her arms, embracing the rich red and burying her face in the warm wool, inhaling deeply, and again, and again.

Carol watched in wonder, until she heard Therese sniffle; she reached out in concern and touched her shoulder.  “Darling, are you ok?”

Therese looked up at her, still clinging to the coat.  Her eyes were full of tears.  She drew a shaky breath and said “I never…Carol, it smells like you. It smells like you. I never…I wanted to do this the night you came to my apartment, I never thought I could, I never…” She inhaled the scent of the coat again.  “Oh Carol…I don’t even have words for how I feel…”

“You don’t need any, honestly,” and Carol understood, feeling overwhelmed beyond words herself.  She wrapped Therese up in an embrace, coat and all, and they stood there for a long moment, rocking back and forth in a complex happiness.

Carol ran her fingers through Therese’s hair, tucking stray strands behind her ears. The coat between them was making her even warmer than she already felt. “Darling, what else did you want to do that night?”

Therese sighed and nestled her head into Carol’s chest.  “Mmm, this maybe. I was afraid to hold you too close, when you were crying.” She tightened her arms around Carol.  “But otherwise…I don’t think I would change a thing, actually.” She looked up at Carol.  “That night was so beautiful, just as it was. How I…fell in love with you, really fell. So much more than enough.”

Now Carols eyes were teary, her smile tremulous.  “Oh Therese, my dearest, darling heart.”

Therese gently pulled back, gathering the coat to her and inhaling its scent again.  Holding it up, she let it unfurl to its full length and then carefully lay it across the chair by the closet.  She came back to Carol again, kissing her full on the mouth.  “I can’t wait any longer,” she murmured, reaching behind Carol and beginning to unbutton her blouse.

“Oh my,” Carol hummed into Therese’s ear, and began pulling at the hem of her blouse, peeling it from her body as fast as Therese could get it unbuttoned.  Soon Therese’s blouse met hers on the floor, followed by skirts, slips, and finally undergarments.  “Never a wrong choice, darling,” Carol teased as she pushed Therese backwards towards the bed.

“Wait,” Therese placed a hand to Carol’s heaving chest, and only the brilliance in her eyes kept Carol from crying out in frustration.  “Just…stay right here. Just…” Therese walked to the head of the bed, and only then did Carol realize the comforter was pulled all the way over the pillows; she was sure the pillows had been on top when she had changed clothes.

“Whatever are you up to?” she shook her head with a laugh.

Therese just grinned, and pulled the comforter back with a flourish.  Carol gasped.  “Oh my god.  You…you did this?”

Therese nodded, clearly immensely pleased with herself. Carol felt like she had been lit on fire, gazing at their bed now made up with sheets and pillowcases of deep bloodred satin, shimmering in the muted light of the room.  She didn’t know whether to laugh or faint or pick Therese right up off her feet, put her in the middle of the bed, and take her immediately.  She settled for shaking her head in amazement.

“What do you think?” Therese sat down on the edge of the bed and ran her hand over the sheening satin.

Carol felt her mouth go dry.  “I…I think you’re even smarter than I am.”

Therese cocked an eyebrow.  “Oh? How so?”

Carol went to the closet and retrieved her package from behind her clothes.  She tossed it into Therese’s lap, still resisting the desire to feel that satin around her and Therese’s bodies. 

Therese tore the paper open and a set of red satin pajamas fell into her lap, almost exactly the same color as the bedsheets.  Her eyes went wide and then she threw her head back and laughed.  “You thought of the headscarf, too, right?”

“Yes, I figured if you wanted me in red…though I like your idea even better.” Carol drew closer to Therese, taking her face in her hands and smiling down at her. 

Therese grinned.  “I have a second set for our bed at the other place.”

Carol growled.  “God, I love you.” She softly pushed Therese back onto the bed and crawled over her, taking great care to drag her thigh between Therese’s as she maneuvered them into the center of the bed.  “You’ll understand if I don’t particularly want to wear pajamas right this minute.”

“I completely, totally understand,” Therese breathed with a kiss to each of Carol’s breasts, then shifted with a twist so that Carol was underneath her.  She knelt up onto her knees and gazed down at Carol beneath her, who shook her head to spill her golden hair out over the red pillows, arms outstretched and poised to reach for Therese in the space of about two more breaths. Carol stretched and arched into the satin, smirking to see Therese turn various shades of pink, from her chest to her cheeks. 

“God, Carol.” Therese’s chest heaved, the green in her eyes was deep, dark, and she licked her lips.  “I may die, right now.”

“Not if I can help it,” Carol rumbled, leaning up and pulling Therese down into a searing, groaning kiss.

  
~ ~ ~

  
The red satin was well-baptized now, Carol thought, Therese tight in her arms, her own head held close in Therese’s chest, both still breathing hard and trembling.  Well-baptized, she thought: in love, and sweat, even wrenching, exultant tears.  A third night of ecstatic lovemaking, undoing and re-doing her, making and re-making her love for Therese deeper, ever deeper.  A trinity, Carol mused, a blessing of three, somehow, these three rapturous nights since their fight Thursday morning which now felt so far away, while the days they met felt as close as her breath. 

Carol pulled Therese even closer, hooked her leg around her tighter.  She knew this bliss would taper to a sweet delightful everyday ordinary time soon enough. A small smile played at her lips as she imagined they might even fight again, someday, though perhaps next time they would be less afraid of it.  Nevertheless she wanted to relish this moment as much as she could.

“My dearest,” she whispered into Therese’s chest, with a small kiss.  She felt a surge of tenderness as Therese’s limbs tightened around her; a kiss was soft on her head.

“I love you, Carol,” Therese sighed. “You…” she was still catching her breath, “…you amaze me.  So…open…to me…”

“And you to me, my heart,” Carol murmured into her skin, still hot and steaming.  “I love you too.”

Their breathing gradually calmed, their bodies gradually cooled.  Carol shifted so that her head was level with Therese’s, pulling the satin top sheet around them as she moved.  One last question had risen in her, but before she asked she caressed Therese’s face until she opened her eyes, still with a gleam of other-worldliness in them.

“Darling…”

“Yes, Carol?” Now Therese was slowly running her fingers through Carol’s hair.

“You never told me…why did you come back, to the Oak Room I mean?”

Therese smiled softly, pondering the question and Carol’s face.  “Because you always came back to me, in the end.”  She traced Carol’s lips with her fingers.  “I was reminded, reading through my letters this morning, I was always asking if you would come back, when you ‘went away’ in your head or even physically, would you come back.  That night, after I left the Ritz, I realized, you always came back. You always came back, and you had come back again, and I felt this time you would never leave me again.”  She kissed Carol’s nose. “Of course on Thursday we realized it was not quite that simple, but that’s what it was, in the moment.  You came back, even though it took longer than I wanted. Longer than I could bear.”

“Me too, darling, me too,” Carol whispered, stunned.

“So,” Therese continued, “how could I _not_ come back, to _you_?”

Carol felt warmth unfurl from her heart.  “I’m so glad you did, I’m so glad you did,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Carol, I’m even glad we fought, in a way. I feel like, we’ve lived so much in these three days, so much that we needed to and we won’t be the same and I feel…so _happy_.”

Carol took a deep, shuddering breath.  “So happy,” she echoed.

Their words faded into the rustle of skin against satin and quiet cries of pleasure building again. The red sheets held them, surrounding them with their soft protection into the dawn.

  
~ ~ ~

  
A ringing and a poking in her ribs broke into Carol’s consciousness, and she stirred.  “Wha…” she slurred groggily.  Therese lay with her head on Carol’s shoulder, an arm and leg thrown over her body.  She was nudging Carol in the side. 

“Phone. Phone,” was all Therese said, without opening her eyes.

Carol shifted to sit up reaching for the phone as Therese rolled onto her back and blinked her eyes open.

Carol answered, slightly annoyed at the interruption. She had no idea what time it was.  “Hello?”

“Oh don’t tell me you’re still in bed. It’s nearly 11.” Abby’s voice through the receiver was laced with laughter.

“Don’t be daft, Abby,” but Carol giggled.

“You’re giggling. You’re still in bed. With her.” Now Abby did laugh.  “Good for you. I had a feeling when I got the flowers that everything had worked out fine between you two.”

“Flowers?”

Carol glanced at Therese and mouthed “Abby.” Therese nodded and smiled gently, pulling the sheet around her as if someone had physically entered the room. Carol winked at her.

“Your woman sent me flowers yesterday, thanking me. She’s a fine one, you know.”

“Oh believe me, I know.”

“I’m so glad, Carol, I really am.”

“Thank you. I mean it.”

“I know, you nitwit.  Listen, the redhead and I are having brunch about 6 blocks from you, are you two willing to grace us with your ridiculously romantic presence?”

Carol held the receiver away from her face and nudged Therese with her toe. “Brunch?” Therese smiled and nodded eagerly.

“Sure, Abby. What time?”

“Half an hour?”

“Abby...we haven’t even…”

“Oh right,” Abby laughed.  “Please shower. How about an hour?”

Carol looked down at Therese, stretching out head to toe, arms above her head, back arching. The red sheet had slipped down to her waist, showing off her naked torso. Carol felt herself grow warm, and licked her lips.

“How about two?”

Abby guffawed.  “Listen, you don’t ever get to give me a hard time again, you’re worse than me!”

“All right, all right, we’ll be there in an hour.”  Carol got the name of the place and hung up.  She grinned at Therese, and ran her fingers down her chest.  “You ready to face the world?”

Therese grinned back. “With you, I’d even face Abby’s teasing.”

Carol laughed. “You sent her flowers?”

“I did. A peace offering of sorts. I’m grateful to her.”

Carol put her hand over Therese’s heart.  “You are a dear.”  She leaned over and kissed her softly.  “You look amazing in these sheets, you know.”

Therese smirked and shifted to her side.  “How long do we have?”

“An hour. How fast can you shower?”

“As fast as it takes,” Therese replied, sliding a hand over Carol’s thigh.  “Or better yet…meet me in there?”

Carols’ eyes flashed.  “Oh darling, you have the very best ideas. However did I get so lucky?”

Therese rose from the bed and headed towards the bathroom, beckoning Carol to follow with a crook of her finger and heated glance over her shoulder. “Salt, Carol, salt.”

Carol followed, willingly.

They were fifteen minutes late.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, this is the recipe I used when I made creamed spinach. And yes, I added the parmigiano. I also added fresh nettles but you may not have that handy. Carol didn't seem to. :-)  
> http://bit.ly/2nCUl3h
> 
> Also FYI: The infamous record! http://bit.ly/2nqUMhN  
> Check the one review! A fan! And here's a little gift for you: I made a youtube playlist of the record!  
> http://bit.ly/2mHnNG8


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